Reddit reviews Science Comics: Coral Reefs: Cities of the Ocean

Oof, tough question. Well, I’ll start with the obvious punt: First off coral reefs are so awesome I can’t imagine why people would stop caring about them or stop trying to save them. :-) But I get your point. And of course, it is difficult for the average person who has never seen a reef, to connect to them, which is why popular books such as Coral Reefs by Maris Wicks are so important: https://www.amazon.com/Science-Comics-Coral-Reefs-Cities/dp/1626721459/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=coral+reefs+by+maris+wicks&qid=1562867747&s=gateway&sr=8-1

As for an estimate of how long they have I truly don’t have a guess. Some corals like Big Momma in American Samoa have lived for 500+ years, dealing with everything that we’ve done to the oceans so far. http://blog.panedia.com/2015/06/10/big-momma-american-samoa/ Why is she so resilient? Lots of scientists like Steve Palumbi and others are looking for strong corals that might be able to survive the coming future, or that have already survived the challenging past. In the Phoenix Islands, there are resilient reefs that have come back from severe bleaching (https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2016/08/18/coral-reef-blooms-pacific) - Mangubhai et al. 2018, Mollica et al. 2019, and others. Trying to find resilient reefs, and the mechanisms behind them, is at the cutting edge of current reef research, and many of my colleagues are doing some incredible research on these topics.

However, climate change aside, in a bar fight between microplastics and a coral, microplastics would most likely win in the end. Our research has shown that corals in the wild ingest, but survive, microplastics to some extent… but at some point, ingestion of too many microplastics will likely cause mortality. And if ingestion alone doesn’t kill them, the potential for pathogenic microbes to hitch a ride on plastics might. But then again…. Corals have one sucker punch move available: they are animals and have behavior. So maybe they will learn to avoid eating microplastics over time? That might prove adaptive if it’s possible. I think this conversation needs a beer. :-)