麻豆淫院

(麻豆淫院) -- Curtin University researchers have used computational fluid dynamics and powerful supercomputers to create new models for understanding and predicting coral bleaching.

A phenomenon that has increased in magnitude over the past two decades, coral bleaching is attributed to an elevation of sea surface temperatures combined with the sun鈥檚 irradiation.

While bleaching is generally expected in response to a one to two degree temperature increase over a prolonged period, the new models consider phenomena such as coral porosity and permeability, morphology, mass and most importantly water flow and heat transfer.

Dr. Ben Mullins of Curtin鈥檚 Fluid Dynamics Research Group said due to their shape and surface area, some corals are likely to be more susceptible to bleaching.

鈥淥ne of the elements ignored until now is water flow, which can significantly influence the thermal microenvironment of the coral as water flows through and around it,鈥� he said.

鈥淏asically, we鈥檝e taken an engineering approach to an issue that biologists have been looking at for years and come up with a completely new method to predict how much corals warm.鈥�

He said outcomes from the computer models were shown to be consistent with outcomes from laboratory experiments, indicating validity of the new approach.

鈥淭he models have the advantage of providing three-dimensional temperature and flow information down to very precise resolution compared to previous methods reliant on microprobes,鈥� he said.

鈥淭hey are also sufficiently flexible to accommodate large-scale in-situ modelling.鈥�

Dr. Mullins said the next step was to apply the models more broadly to entire coral reefs.

鈥淕iven the scale of these structures, it鈥檚 very hard to get good data out in the field,鈥� he said.

鈥淭raditionally, researchers have measured temperature and flow at different points, which isn鈥檛 an accurate representation of the larger system.

鈥淥ur models are much more comprehensive.

鈥淕iven that the Great Barrier Reef is worth $6 billion from tourism alone to the Australian economy, there鈥檚 immense value in reef conservation.鈥�

Coral consist of a calcite skeleton with a layer of living tissue. They live in a symbiotic relationship with zooxanthellae, single-celled plants/algae, with both providing nutrients for survival.

Coral bleaching occurs when zooxanthellae are expelled by coral or lose their pigmentation. Under some circumstances coral can recover, but in most cases they die.

Published in PLoS One, the research was spearheaded by Curtin鈥檚 Fluid Dynamics Research Group with the Australian Institute of Marine Science.