Rising sea temperature has resulted in the massive death of corals on the Saipan Lagoon, an indication that the Commonwealth is experiencing an El Ni\u00f1o-like phenomenon that is currently wreaking havoc in the mainland U.S. and in other parts of Asia.<\/p>\n
If sea temperature continues to rise, a wider scale of coral death may impact on the fish communities that use the corals as their habitat. Corals also take carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and release oxygen instead, mitigating global warming of the earth. <\/p>\n
\u201cEl Ni\u00f1o brings either the change in currents or the slowdown of the currents that normally run along CNMI, bringing in new fresh, cooler waters. So when the stagnant waters sit there, two thing happen: the water becomes warmer because it\u2019s not moving and it\u2019s not being refreshed by waters coming from Hawaii and along the equator and places like that; and another thing that happens is that sunlight\u2014UV [ultraviolet] rays\u2014are able to penetrate deeper into the water,\u201d said Division of Environmental Quality marine biologist Peter Houk.<\/p>\n
However, the phenomenon being experienced by the CNMI has not been officially classified yet as El Ni\u00f1o.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe put up continuous temperature monitoring instruments about two months ago, and we\u2019re going to leave them out there throughout the summer, and we\u2019re going to document [the results],\u201d said Houk, referring to the Saipan Lagoon.<\/p>\n
The warming phenomenon has resulted in the death of corals not just on the Saipan Lagoon, but also on Tinian and Rota\u2019s waters.<\/p>\n
\u201cAn estimate that we have is that of this large Staghorn coral that\u2019s in the area of the lighthouse\u2014that would be about Fishing Base going south towards Sugar Dock\u2014we\u2019ve lost anywhere between 50 and 70 percent of our Staghorn coral beds ,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
On Rota and on Tinian, estimates of coral death was at 10 percent each. Houk said surveys would also be conducted on the waters surrounding the Northern Islands.<\/p>\n
Staghorn corals are considered one of the most dominant coral beds on Saipan Lagoon. Scientifically known as acropora, their pores contain thousands of algae that photosynthesize sunlight. The algae are known as zooxanthellae.<\/p>\n
\u201cThousands and thousands of zooxanthellae \u2013 these are algae that live inside there and they photosynthesize the sunlight and they give the corals energy to grow \u2013 the high temperature makes the corals expel these zooxanthellae so they no longer get food from these tiny algae,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
When this happens, the healthy, brownish color of the twig-looking corals \u2013 that adds to the beautiful scenery underwater \u2013 is lost, and the corals turn extremely white, according to Houk. When the corals die, they will break down, depriving fish of the habitat they should have provided.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese corals function many things. They\u2019re habitat for fish, octopus, lobsters, and things that we like to eat, things that tourists like to come and see. Also these corals photosynthesize and on a big scale, I\u2019m pretty sure they dig up carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and release oxygen just like trees,\u201d the marine biologist said.<\/p>\n
Currently, he said the impact on fish communities of the coral deaths may hardly be seen yet, since many Staghorn branches have yet to break down.<\/p>\n
But he added: \u201cThe fish communities will change as the Staghorn breaks down because now it\u2019s dead. When it was alive it will continue growing, but now that it\u2019s dead, the branches will slowly break down and form rubble.\u201d<\/p>\n
So-called farmer fish would then dominate near the rubbles, the type of fish that is not preferred as food by fishermen, said Houk.<\/p>\n
Unconfirmed information received by the DEQ also revealed that sea water temperature is expected to rise further, aggravating the situation in the coming months.<\/p>\n
To mitigate this, Houk said a clean, healthy marine habitat should be in place. This will allow new corals to come in and grow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rising sea temperature has resulted in the massive death of corals on the Saipan Lagoon, an indication that the Commonwealth is experiencing an El Ni\u00f1o-like phenomenon that is currently wreaking havoc in the mainland U.S. and in other parts of Asia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63387\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}