The Hidden Ocean: Visualizing the Conditions for Life

In the next 40 minutes, we’re going to explore some of the remarkable relationships that support life on our home planet. But the real the star of tonight’s show is going to be the oceans and the coral reefs.

Water is Life

But to truly understand the story of Earth’s oceans, we have to first turn to the stars.

We’ll start is by zooming through this interactive Digital Universe Atlas to get a sense of our home planet within its cosmic context.

As astronomers have been using powerful telescopes and probes to look for signs of life on other planets in the past few decades, they’ve gained a greater appreciation of the many conditions necessary to support life as we know it.

And chief amongst these is the need for water.

But hosting liquid water requires a solid surface, which disqualifies gas giants like Saturn and Jupiter.

And on rocky planets, the surface needs to be just the right temperature so water doesn’t permanently evaporate or freeze.

And it turns out that this can only exist within a very specific distance from the sun.

In their search for other habitable planets, astronomers look for planets in what they call the “Goldilocks zone,” where the temperatures are not too hot and not too cold.

And it turns out that in our own solar system, Earth is the only planet within this zone.

Unlike Venus and Mars, Earth has temperatures that are just right for liquid water.

As we pull further away from our home planet, we see the Kuiper belt, a toroidal band of several billion icy bodies that lie outside the orbits of Neptune and Pluto.

These are the remnants of planet formation, leftover debris from the early Solar System.

And at the outer edge of our solar system, billions of miles from home, we fly through the Oort Cloud, a spherical shell of several trillion icy comets.

These bodies, along with many icy moons of the outer planets, contain more than 99% of the water in the Solar System.

But the water here is frozen, and inaccessible to life.

Astronomers believe that most of the water on Earth came from this cometary ice billions of years ago.

And the more we study deep space, the more we continue to find ways that Earth’s relationship to its cosmic environment has been conducive to life.

For instance, the gravity of our planet’s disproportionately large Moon drives the tides of Earth’s ocean, which have been essential for evolutionary processes and transporting heat around the planet.

Even the magnetic field generated by Earth’s molten core—called the magnetosphere—prevents our ocean and atmosphere from being blown away by the solar winds that are constantly bombarding us from the sun.

And though we often talk about many oceans on Earth, it actually has one big ocean with many features largely hidden from our view.

The ocean is largely unexplored.

And just as we’ve begun exploring outer space in the past few decades, we’re also just really beginning to explore this massive ocean.

This is a visualization of the ship’s trajectories mapping the ocean floor, but only 5-10% of it has been mapped and explored.

This visualization of the oceans bathymetry is what they’re revealing.

Even so, we still know much less about the bottom of our own planet’s ocean than the surface of the Moon or Mars.

The ocean and life in the ocean shape the features of Earth.

But as they’ve studied the ocean, scientists are beginning to better understand the extraordinary degree to which the ocean and the life it supports have shaped the habitability of the entire planet.

For instance, the ocean provides over half of the oxygen that we breathe.

This visualization show the photosynthesis in the oceans, made possible by microscopic plankton that take CO2 out of the atmosphere to produce “biomass” and oxygen.

Both fish and land-based organisms depend on this cycle.

An important aspect of the ocean’s productivity is determined by interactions between the shape of the ocean floor, Earth’s rotation, and the nutrients sweeping up from the deeper, colder waters.

The flow of these nutrients up from the deep along coastlines is known as “upwelling,” a process that supports the growth of seaweed and plankton.

And this provides food for fish, marine mammals, seabirds, and of course, humans.

Though upwelling zones are less than 1% of the oceans—shown here—they are responsible for nearly 25% of wild fish catches.

Due to this coastal productivity, nearly one billion people living in coastal communities depend on fish as their primary source of protein.

The fisheries sector alone creates jobs for an estimated 180 million people.

And the yearly services provided by the oceans, including the provision of food, oxygen, water and climate regulation, are valued at over $21 trillion.

The upwelling that exists off our coast fuels tremendous productivity and supports a wide range of species – from plankton all the way up to charismatic megafauna like whales and sharks. And in recent decades, through city, state, Federal and private partnerships, we’ve done a great job of protecting our coastline, both for future generations and for benefits to our society that we experience and enjoy right now. In California, we’ve been a leader in coastal conservation and ocean stewardship. And,that’s important, because as you will see in the rest of the program, there are other areas around the globe that are tremendously productive and vital to a healthy planet, and that need to be protected at the scale at which we are doing in California.

Coral reefs are special places that are only found in a narrow band around the equator and within the tropics, where warm, clear, clean, shallow water provides the right conditions for them to grow.

Corals are the ocean’s engineers - small, simple animals that work together as a community to build magnificent structures that can even be seen from space. Reef-building corals actually make rock from water - forming their limestone skeletons from dissolved calcium and carbonate ions.

The Coral Triangle—‘the center of marine biodiversity’—is a region in the Pacific Ocean defined by the island nations of the Philippines, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. Over 120 million people live in the Coral Triangle and rely on coral reefs for food, protection from storms and economic livelihood.

Though it is just one percent of Earth's surface, the coral triangle contains 1/3 of all coral reefs, 3/4 of the world’s corals, and more than 1/3 of all coral reef fish species. It is the spawning ground for many commercially important fishes, including tuna.

Commercial fisheries provide a significant amount of the food for people living in the coral triangle and elsewhere. Although this is vital for the economics of the region, the scale at which we are removing fish from the ocean is something that is hard to grasp.

In order to help visualize this, we are going to look at the Earth after sunset, when the skies are dark.

What you are seeing right now is the area known as the Coral Triangle. The lights that you see on land are cities and towns, while the lights that you see on the ocean help us to visualize the impacts of global industrial fishing. The scale of this fishing activity is truly astonishing, and it is far from sustainable. And all of this activity is taking place in and around one of the most delicate and critical ecosystems on our planet: coral reefs.

Healthy coral reefs support commercial and subsistence fisheries as well as jobs and businesses through tourism and recreation. Within the US, approximately half of all federally managed fisheries depend on coral reefs and related habitats for a portion of their life cycles. And these fisheries that we depend on are at risk. 87% of measured species are fully exploited or collapsed.

Globally, coral reefs provide a net benefit of $9.6 billion/year from tourism and recreation revenues and $5.7 billion/year from fisheries. Recreational fisheries on coral reefs account for more than $100 million a year, in the US alone.

Coral reefs are beautiful. They offer tremendous benefits to human society—and not just people living adjacent to reefs. They are an essential part of the diversity in our one connected ocean, and nowhere are they more concentrated than an area known as the Coral Triangle.

Academy scientists are working with partners in the Philippines on the restoration of damaged and human-impacted coral reefs. And we work with local governments to improve the resilience of this globally important region. This is a story about the Philippines, but it’s also a story about the rest of the world because reef ecosystems need protection—by all of us—to keep communities vibrant and resilient worldwide.

One form of protection is a “Marine Protected Area”, For MPA”

Today the Philippines hosts about 10% of the world's MPAs—over 500, a figure far greater than any other country in Southeast Asia. Established largely through local government initiatives and maintained through the blood, sweat and tears of local coastal communities, these undersea enclaves are scattered throughout the archipelago to provide vital safe havens for Philippine marine life.

Coral reefs are places that embody the mystery and beauty of the ocean and also bring to light some of the challenges we have as a species when dealing with the enormous ocean environment that dominates our planet.

Coral reefs are among the oldest ecosystems in the world. Ancestors of today’s reef building corals go back 200 million years. This means they’ve weathered at least 3 mass extinctions.

Coral reefs are often called the Rainforests of the Sea. Much like these lush terrestrial forests, they are areas of exceptionally high biodiversity, containing many of the ocean’s species. Since I am a marine biologist, and admittedly ocean-biased, I prefer to think of this the other way around: that Rainforests are the “Coral Reefs of the Land”.

When we look at coral reefs, we often feel a sense of peace and tranquility. Nothing could be farther from the truth! Because such an immense amount of biodiversity is packed into such a small area, there is tremendous competition for space and resources. In fact, rather than being peaceful and serene, coral reefs are more like a major city—say New York City—but with complex biological and chemical warfare going on at all times!

On a mature reef, new substrate (bare rock) is rare, and is subject to intense competition. Corals and other animals, are fiercely competing for space—deploying specialized stinging tentacles to kill and digest their neighbors, and releasing toxic compounds into the water to poison their neighbors in an attempt to create more space for them. Other species compete through rapid growth—by forming tables, thickets of branches that shade their neighbors—starving them of the sunlight that they need to nourish their life-giving symbiotic algae.

On mature coral reefs, biodiversity is maintained by periodic disturbances—such as waves, wind and storms that break off or flip over corals and expose bare limestone rock. On healthy reefs, coral recruits, encrusting algae and other invertebrates immediately colonize these spaces. When reefs aren’t healthy or where herbivorous fishes have been removed, we often see a shift to an ecosystem dominated by filamentous algae or seaweed, and an overall loss of diversity.

Because reef-building corals require clean, clear, warm, shallow ocean waters they are limited to a small range around the globe.

Corals are the oceans’ engineers. These tiny, simple, gelatinous animals build massive, complex, 3-dimensional structures by taking dissolved carbon and converting it to limestone. Essentially, they make rock from water. The hard structures they create, coral reefs, are critical habitat for thousands of species: fish, algae, and invertebrates, even humans.

This process is largely due to a complex symbiotic relationship between an animal (the coral polyp) and a plant (called zooxanthellae, or symbiotic algae). The coral hosts the plant, giving it shelter and providing it with animal wastes in the form of carbon dioxide and organic molecules. In turn, the algae produces oxygen and converts sunlight to sugar, providing the coral with more than 90% of the energy that it needs to live and grow. The coral animals supplement this by feeding on plankton that they catch with their small stinging tentacles.

Coral polyps live in colonies of genetically identical clones formed through division, or “budding”. All of the polyps in a colony are derived from a single larvae that settled out of the plankton on to a suitable site on the reef, metamorphosed into a coral polyp and then started cloning itself over and over again.

Individual corals can grow rather quickly, assuming conditions are ideal. Coral reefs, however, take decades to grow. Although individual polyps may be relatively short-lived, coral colonies can live for centuries, preserving the genetics of that original larva over many, many lifetimes.

Pollution impacts coral reefs in a variety of ways. Trash and garbage introduced into the ecosystem obviously causes problems, but one of the more pressing issues is the release of organic waste in the form of sewage. In developing countries, where wastewater treatment has not been modernized, or doesn’t even exist, the release of raw sewage onto coral reefs introduces nutrients, pharmaceuticals, and disease agents. Because coral reefs exist so close to shore, they are particularly vulnerable to pollution. Increasing nutrient levels fuel algae growth, and what scientists call a “phase-shift”, where the coral reef ecosystem changes into an algae-dominated ecosystem. The removal of herbivores by subsistence fishers enhances this impact.

The symbiotic relationship between corals and zooxanthellae is a complex arrangement that only works within a narrow environmental range, so it is especially vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. When the temperature increases above 30’C (or 86’ F), the algae actually start to poison the corals by producing too many free radicals, so the coral “expels” the algae through its mouth—a process known as “bleaching”. When conditions improve, the corals can re-infect themselves with zooxanthellae that they collect from the water column. When you combine repeated bleaching episodes with other impacts such as pollution and disease, the corals simply cannot recover, and the reefs begin to die.

Here you see a graphic documenting the accumulated heat stress that occurred during a global bleaching event in 2010, the warmest year on record.

Blue regions show the distribution of coral reefs. The yellow and orange areas are zones where the water has stayed too warm over several weeks, leading to accumulated heat stress. Orange regions show where bleaching is likely to occur, while the pink indicates that coral death is likely. The large X’s mark where scientists have observed massive coral bleaching.

Ocean acidification is a major concern and could become one of the primary reasons for the collapse of coral reefs. As atmospheric carbon dioxide levels increase, the pH of the ocean decreases—making the water more acidic. This acidity has the potential to make it harder for corals to build their skeletons. So, in the near future, corals will grow more slowly and build less robust reefs—and we don’t know if they will be able to keep up with the constant damage caused by waves, storms and other eroding organisms.

Here is what ocean pH looked like in pre-industrial times, in 1885. As the color moves from blue to orange, you see the ocean becoming more acidic: what it is today, and in a projection of what it will be like mid-century, in 2048 and at the end of the century, in 2094.

The grey dots you see are the current location of coral reefs. As we move to later in the century, these areas will no longer support this kind of life.

Approximately 30% of the Earth’s coral reefs have been destroyed to date and another 30% could be gone by 2040. But all is not lost. By identifying areas of species richness, like the coral triangle, and protecting reefs that are located in areas less impacted by climate change, such as those adjacent to deep, cooler waters, we can help preserve healthy reef ecosystems far into the future.

The Coral triangle region has been hailed by globally-renowned coral expert Dr. Charles Veron as ‘the center of world marine diversity’—an area so implausibly productive that a single square kilometer can keep on producing over 40 metric tons of fresh seafood year over year. With proper protection, these coral reefs can eradicate Asian poverty and feed billions—a coral-coated cornucopian horn unlike any other.

The Philippine MPA story begins in 1974—a time when cyanide and blast fishing were at their peak. Under the capable guidance of Silliman University, a portion of Sumilon Isle off the southeastern tip of Cebu was declared a no-take zone—and the country's first MPA was born. From 1974 onwards, 25% of Sumilon's coral reefs were meticulously protected. Ten years of improved fish yields from both within and outside the protected zone proved the strategy was sound.

Protection waned in 1985 however, causing fish yields to dwindle. The Sumilon experience proved that constant vigilance was essential to keep MPAs alive and productive.

Today the Philippines hosts about 10% of the world's MPAs—over 500, a figure far greater than any other country in Southeast Asia. Established largely through local government initiatives and maintained through the blood, sweat and tears of local coastal communities, these undersea enclaves are scattered throughout the archipelago to provide vital safe havens for Philippine marine life.

Sometimes all it takes the brave, selfless actions of a single individual to protect and preserve a habitat for future generations. In Anilao, Princess realized that decades of unsustainable fishing, especially blast fishing, was causing irreparable damage to the reef off of her home. Despite hostility from the fishermen in her village, including threats on her life, she led the charge to designate this reef as a marine protected area. All fishing and diving are off-limits—giving the reef time to recover from the damage caused by irresponsible fishing practices.

A few years ago, on an Academy expedition to the Philippines, we were presented with the opportunity to dive on Princess’s reef. While much of the bottom still showed evidence of the destruction of dynamite fishing, huge schools of fish—species we did not see elsewhere—populated the water column. You could see clearly that with mitigation of destructive practices and community-based protection the reef will rebound.

What really struck me was that Princess did all of this without knowing what the reef looked like. Never in her life had she put her head underwater and seen the beauty that lies beneath the sea just off the shores of her small village

The Philippines forms the apex of the Coral Triangle and is the world's second-largest archipelago. Within this exquisite region sits 7107 emerald isles fringed by 27,000 square kilometers of coral reef.

The area known popularly as “Anilao” lies within the Verde Island Passage, on the southwest end of the main island of Luzon. This area is one of 4 major biodiversity hotspots in the coral triangle region, and has been called the “center of the center” of marine biodiversity by several prominent scientists. Through scientific study, we know that more species of reef fishes are found here than anywhere else on earth. We know that more species of nudibranchs, colorful sea slugs, are found here than anywhere else on earth. And we have witnessed one dive site, Devil’s Rock, where there are more species of soft corals than in the entire Caribbean basin.

We think what makes this region so productive is the upwelling—cooler, nutrient-rich waters coming up from the depths bring food into the community and support a rich assemblage of species. In some ways, this is similar to the upwelling that occurs off our coast here in California. And these cool waters may provide a buffer against some of the impacts of climate change, making the Verde Island Passage of particular importance for conservation.

Terry Gosliner, the Dean of Science and Collections at the Academy has been traveling to the Verde Island Passage for more than 20 years, diving and documenting the nudibranchs (colorful sea slugs) found in these waters. Even though he has been diving on the same dive sites, on the same small peninsula, on the same island, year after year, he still finds a new species of nudibranch on nearly every dive. In fact, he and his colleagues have documented the presence of more than 1000 species of nudibranchs in this region, and the species accumulation curve (the rate of discovery of new occurrences or species) doesn’t seem to be slowing down. This is just one example and evidence of the immense biological diversity in this region.

One way that we are working to continue to enhance the study and conservation of marine biodiversity in the Philippines is through the expansion of Project SECORE into the Philippines. SECORE is a network of scientists, public aquarium professionals, conservation biologists and concerned citizens, united with the goal of utilizing the corals’ natural methods of sexual reproduction for conservation purposes.

During coral spawning events, coral colonies release bundles of gametes into the water column. These gametes float to the surface, where fertilization takes place, and then they become part of the plankton, drifting and developing into tiny coral larvae that will then swim down and form new colonies. Because such a small percentage of these survive to adulthood, scientists can collect the gametes, culture them through the delicate larval phase, settle them, and then use the resulting colonies to enhance populations of target species on wild coral reefs.

SECORE has had proven success working with 2 species of endangered stony corals in the Caribbean. Through our partnerships in the Philippines, and as a member of the SECORE network, we are working to introduce these techniques for conservation in the Philippines.

In addition, as a way to create jobs and provide an economic incentive to protect coral reefs, the Philippines Government Bureau of Fisheries is exploring the possibility of allowing coral farming for export to the global aquarium trade if it is undertaken using SECORE techniques. We are currently involved in discussions with partners in the Philippines about this project and plan to conduct the first SECORE Philippines spawning workshop sometime in 2014.

Please join us in the classroom after this program for an open discussion on community-based conservation and socio-economic connections to reef restoration.

Here at the California Academy of Sciences, our Philippine Coral Reef exhibit is not only a beautiful place to sit, relax and watch the activities of thousands of fish, it is also a stage- where we engage audiences in conservation education, and deliver programs that address complex topics such as ocean acidification and sustainable fishing. I’d like to invite you to join us for a Coral Reef Dive show, which takes place every day at 11:30am and 2:30pm.

The Academy’s Philippine Coral Reef exhibit is a simulated, simplified ecosystem of sorts, designed to reflect the beauty and diversity of the coral reefs of Anilao in the Verde Island Passage. The exhibit consists of a central 200,000-gallon aquarium—the largest and deepest indoor coral reef in the world—surrounded by several galleries of smaller tanks that highlight various evolutionary and ecological themes associated with coral reefs. The design and development of this exhibit took more than 6 years, and we are celebrating the 5 year anniversary of its opening later this month.

A team of biologists, water quality specialists, life-support engineers and SCUBA divers work everyday to ensure the health and vitality of the exhibit as we try and grow a living coral reef far from where it would naturally be found. As you can imagine, growing a mature coral reef from a bare concrete structure in a concrete and glass building, in a public park, in a major metropolitan area in Northern California is not without its challenges.

One of our main challenges with this exhibit was acquiring the corals. While it is possible to obtain permits to collect and export 1000 square feet of a reef from countries that export living coral as a natural resource, that really didn’t fit with the mission of the Academy—“to explore, explain and sustain life”. So, we went about obtaining our corals in an entirely different way—by cultivating them from cuttings, or fragments, grown in aquaria all around the country. Approximately 50% of the corals that you see in our display were grown at the Academy over a period of many years, from small branches taken from corals growing in other aquaria. Greenhouse gardening, if you will, except with animals.

We also partnered with the US Fish and Wildlife Service to place corals that were confiscated as they entered the United States due to improper permits, misidentification, or downright smuggling. About ¼ of the corals in our exhibit were confiscations that would otherwise die if they could not be placed with a public aquarium.

To date, with nearly 1000 colonies of coral, representing more than 100 species, we have not purchased a single piece of wild-collected coral for our exhibit. This acquisition policy directly reflects our mission of sustainability and conservation education.

Real reefs are not aquaria—they are part of a connected ocean system. People are using a variety of strategies to protect them in a changing world. MPAs, social entrepreneurial (come to discussion), studying/understanding supply chains.

Human well-being is tied to our ocean ecosystems and less than 2% of marine ecosystems are protected, while subsidies still encourage overfishing and oil drilling in fragile ecosystems like the Arctic. Need to prioritize protection.

We live in a special place. You’re visiting a special building. You can engage with the natural world and make a difference.