My research topic is about coral reef survival and the different methods used to by scientists to help the coral survive. It was difficult trying to find a journal article in print about coral reefs. Luckily, in March 2017, Volume 543 of Nature I found an article about coral bleaching and the effects 20 years of it has had on the Great Barrier Reef. Terry P. Hughes and 45 other scientists and professors wrote, “Global warming and recurrent mass bleaching of corals.” This article uses expert knowledge from 46 scientists, while using statistics, aerial and underwater photos and surveys, and heat maps to figure out if their hypothesis that good water quality have a relationship to coral being resistance to bleaching. Unfortunately, the hypothesis had no statistical support. The data on degree heating weeks (DHW) agrees with the statistics. Degree heating weeks are the hottest weeks of the year where in certain locations the heat stress is too much of coral and it starts to bleach. This article focuses on three years; 1998, 2002, and 2016 to show the readers that coral bleaching does not affect individual coral and the bleaching is not a single event. Also, no matter if a community bans fishing, boating, or underwater activities, bleaching will still happen due to increasing temperatures. Bleaching can happen to coral twice in decade and it a world wide catastrophe. The Great Barrier Reef was the location these scientists focused on. Interesting part of this article is section on certain species of coral are better at surviving and recovering from bleaching than other species. The coral species that are able to bounce back quicker are ones that colonize quickly and grow within 10-15 years. This article did a good job at showing its readers how much climate change is affecting coral reefs and the urgency of helping recovering coral through marine parks and better water quality. However, this study was limited to one location, The Great Barrier Reef, and this specific location has been hit hard by climate change. Also, only tells the readers that coral bleaching is caused by climate change, and not solutions on how to slow bleaching down. All the hypothesized solutions that were written about in the article were denounced. Overall, this article was interesting because I couldn’t wrap my head around how to use statistics when discussing coral bleaching. When finding the relationship between degree heating weeks and the percent of coral bleached, a fitted line was found, y=48.6ln(x)-21.6. This article used the data type, reports of acts, behavior and events. The was found via aerial and underwater photos and surveys, and heat maps provided by Geoscience Australia.  

Terry P. Hughes, James T. Kerry, Mariana Alvarez-Noriega, Jorge G. Alvarez-Romero, Kristen D. Anderson, Andrew H. Baird, Russell C. Babcock, Maria Beger, David R. Bellwood, Ray Berkelmans, Tom C. Bridge, Ian R. Butler, Maria Byrne, Neal E. Cantin, Steeve Comeau, Sean R. Connolly, Greame S. Cumming, Steven J. Dalton, Guillermo Diaz-Pulido, C. Mark Eakin, Will F. Figueira, James P. Gilmour, Hugo B. Harrison, Scott F. Heron, Andrew S. Hoey, Jean-Paul A. Hobbs, Mia O. Hoogenboom, Emma V. Kennedy, Chao-yang Kuo, Janice M. Lough, Ryan J. Lowe, Gang Liu, Malcolm T. McCulloch, Hamish A. Malcolm, Michael J. McWilliam, John M. Pandolfi, Rachel J. Pears, Morgan S. Pratchett, Verena Schoepf, Tristan Simpson, William J. Skirving, Brigitte Sommer, Gergely Torda, David R. Wachenfeld, Bette L. Willis & Shaun K. Wilson. 2017. “Global warming and recurrent mass bleaching of coral.” Nature 543(7645): 373-377.