{"id":46733,"date":"2025-08-06T00:24:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-06T00:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/46733\/"},"modified":"2025-08-06T00:24:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-06T00:24:08","slug":"great-barrier-reef-suffers-worst-coral-decline-on-record-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/46733\/","title":{"rendered":"Great Barrier Reef suffers worst coral decline on record"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stressed coral will probably die if it experiences temperatures 1C (1.8F) above its thermal limit for two months. If waters are 2C higher, it can survive around one month.<\/p>\n

Unusually warm tropical waters triggered widespread coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef in 2024<\/a> and in the first few months of 2025, the sixth such event since 2016.<\/p>\n

As well as climate change, natural weather patterns like El Ni\u00f1o<\/a> can also play a role in mass bleaching events.<\/p>\n

The reef has “experienced unprecedented levels of heat stress, which caused the most spatially extensive and severe bleaching recorded to date,” the report found.<\/p>\n

Any recovery could take years and was dependent on future coral reproduction and minimal environmental disturbance, according to the report.<\/p>\n

In the latest AIMS survey results, the most affected coral species were the Acropora, which are susceptible to heat stress and a favoured food of the crown-of-thorns starfish.<\/p>\n

“These corals are the fastest to grow and are the first to go,” AIMS research lead Dr Mike Emslie told ABC News.<\/p>\n

“The Great Barrier Reef is such a beautiful, iconic place, it’s really, really worth fighting for. And if we can give it a chance, it’s shown an inherent ability to recover,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stressed coral will probably die if it experiences temperatures 1C (1.8F) above its thermal limit for two months.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46734,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[1397,90,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-46733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46733\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}