1. A threatened area
CORAL REEFS

2. The Great Barrier Reef:
We will watch all three presentations. You will vote.
Assessment:
SKILLS: Individual grade for your section – slide content and presentation skills
KNOWLEDGE: Individual grade for what you remember afterwards – worksheet.
UNDERSTANDING AND APPLICATION: Exam question

3. Where the Great Barrier Reef is
Facts that let us know it is a biodiversity hotspot (1 person)
How coral forms, How the GBR functions as an ecosystem – trophic levels, food web, energy, inputs, outputs, (all the key words up till now) (2 people)
Human threats – tourism, farming, fishing, global warming
(2 people)
Natural threats – Predators – crown of thorns starfish, storms/cyclones/El Nino (1 person)
Whoever finishes first: Conclusion – All of these threats combined – equilibrium – consequences for economy/coastal defence/biodiversity.

4. (Hard coral species, proportion soft coral out of world’s population)
Where the Great Barrier Reef is Facts that let us know it is a biodiversity hotspot
Length/area
No of species
Types of species
(Hard coral species, proportion soft coral out of world’s population)
No. of world’s threatened turtles, species of marine mammals

5. Human threats – tourism, farming, fishing, global warming
Over fishing
Sea floor trawling
Commercial/subsistence farming
Sedimentation
Mangroves
Sea pollution – causes
Coral bleaching

6. Natural threats – Predators – crown of thorns starfish, storms/cyclones/El Nino
Diseases
Predators
Crown of thorns starfish
Storms
Cyclones
El Nino

7. Conclusion Can withstand one threat Combined threats a problem
Irreversible damage
Breakdown of the reef system
Critical threshold reached – even if threats stop, damage cannot be reversed and ecosystem won’t recover
Loss of biodiversity
New equilibrium established – not a hotspot anymore