In French Polynesia, dedicated teams are working to restore the extensive coral reefs around the 118-strong island group, and there is a range of environmentally responsible tours for visitors who want to take a look for themselves.
Coral Reefs are important to the planet, but their numbers are declining. Angela Martinez Quintana, who received her Ph.D. at UB, has been studying ocean habitats in depth. Her research focuses on coral reefs, their impact on the environment, and their restoration.
That means scientists are vastly underestimating Earth’s microbiome, microbiologist Pierre Galand of Sorbonne University in Paris said at a May 31 news conference. The new count of bacteria living in the Pacific Ocean’s coral reefs alone falls within current estimates for the total microbial diversity of Earth, suggesting that there exponentially more bacteria living on the planet than previously thought.
Some researchers, resource managers, and conservationists have advocated restoring populations of algae-eating reef fish, such as parrotfish in order to boost resilience of the world’s coral reefs.
