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Australia’s Great Barrier Reef has lost more than half of its coral in the past three decades, and scientists fear that the loss caused by frequent bleaching will compromise its ability to recover.
The record temperatures that triggered bleaching events in 2016 and 2017 have meant fewer reproducing small, baby and adult corals, said Terry Hughes, a professor at the ARC Center of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University.
“That means the reef’s resilience, its ability to bounce back from recurring mass bleaching episodes, has been compromised,” Hughes said.
Also read: The Great Barrier Reef of Australia suffers the largest coral bleaching
“We used to think that the Great Barrier Reef is protected because of its large size, but our results show that even the largest and relatively well-protected reef system in the world is becoming more compromised and in decline.”
Bleaching earlier this year could have caused more damage to the southern reef region, Hughes said. The reef suffered its most extensive bleaching event in March, the third in five years.
The Great Barrier Reef runs 2,300 km along the northeast coast of Australia and covers an area half the size of Texas. It was declared a World Heritage Site in 1981 by UNESCO as the most extensive and spectacular coral reef ecosystem on the planet.
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