Massive coral bleaching killing Australia's Great Barrier Reef - 2016
Fish swim amid bleached coral near Lizard Island, Australia, Great Barrier ReefCoral - 4 stages of coral - healthy, bleached, algal growth voer bleached dead coralClose-up of four staes of coral bleaching dying coral great barrier reef australiaheavy algal overgrowth over bleached dying coral - Great Barrier Reef Australia
The massive bleaching hitting the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia is likely that country's "biggest ever environmental disaster," says Dr. Justin Marshall, who has studied the reef for three decades. Only 7 percent of the reef has escaped bleaching, according to researchers at the ARC Center of Excellence. Marshall, a professor at the University of Queensland, says the destructive phenomenon is happening in an area the size of Scotland. "Before this mass bleaching started, we already were at the point of losing 50% of the coral cover on the Great Barrier Reef. This, I think, will probably take another 50% off what was left," Marshall says. Over the course of the last six months, Marshall and his colleagues with the citizen science project Coral Watch have documented the degradation of reef structures near Lizard Island, one of the worst-hit areas. They photographed the same formations of coral multiple times, showing clearly the pace of the destruction.
Killer starfish threaten Great Barrier Reef Crown-of-thorns starfish have a voracious appetite and waves of carnivorous starfish are eating their way through Australia's Great Barrier Reef - and sugar cane farming is being blamed. Researchers at Australia's Institute of Marine Science (AIMS), just outside Townsville, Queensland, in north-east Australia, have mapped the pattern of destruction. "Coral cover is half of what it was 27 years ago, coral cover is going down at an alarming rate." Dr Katharina Fabricius, coral reef ecologist and AIMS principal research scientist, told the BBC World Service programme Discovery. She said the biggest culprit was the Crown of Thorns Starfish (COTs). "There are three main sources for the coral decline, one is storms, however 42% is attributed to Crown of Thorns Starfish - and just 10% due to bleaching. This compares with 70% due to bleaching for reefs elsewhere in the world , such as in the Caribbean." “Crown of Thorns are very fecund animals - each female can produce between five and 20 million eggs ” John Brodie, James Cook University Bleaching occurs when corals are stressed by changes in conditions such as temperature, light, or nutrients. They expel the symbiotic algae living in their tissues, causing them to turn completely white. Australian scientists are now looking at ways to reduce the destruction wreaked by starfish, which have the ability to smother coral and digest the fleshy parts.
Only 7 percent of the reef has escaped bleaching, 
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