Global Warming Causes Outbreak of Rare Algae Associated with Corals, Study Finds (1 of 2) (IMAGE)

Penn State

Global Warming Causes Outbreak of Rare Algae Associated with Corals, Study Finds (1 of 2)

Caption

Scientists have found a rare species of algae that is tolerant of stressful environmental conditions and that proliferated in Caribbean corals when the corals' more-sensitive algae were being expelled during the sea-temperature warming of 2005. The research is one of the first times that anyone has had the opportunity to conduct a community-wide study of corals and algae before, during and after a bleaching event. This image, by research leader Todd LaJeunesse of Penn State, was taken in October 2005 during the 2005 coral-bleaching event in the Caribbean. The white corals have lost their symbiotic algae and appear "bleached."

Credit

Todd LaJeunesse, Penn State University

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