 Hi, my name is Annemiek of Vanden Heuvel and I'm from the University of Queensland. And here at Heron Island we are looking at the effects of climate change on coral reef ecosystems. So UV is this setup to run our two different experiments. Could you explain the first experiment and how you designed it and what you were trying to find out from it? Yes, certainly. So this experiment is run by Sophie Darvano of Heuvelberg and what we did for the first experiment was we had four different scenarios. So we wanted to see what was the impact of climate change. So to do that we didn't want to just look into the future, we also wanted to look into the past to see whether it's changed already. So the first treatment we had was a pre-industrial treatment where we rolled back the clock and we'd reduced the temperature and we reduced the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which means we reduced the carbon dioxide in the water which meant that the pH wasn't quite so low. So it's a change in pH slightly higher and slightly lower temperatures. We then had the today treatment so same conditions as what we had today. Now what's really great about the experiment is that we have a boy sitting out off here on Island that records temperature and the acidity and everything in the ocean and we have access to that data. So we put that into a computer program and that computer program runs and meets those temperatures every hour throughout the day. So we get daily fluctuations, we get yearly fluctuations. So rather than having a stagnant one set temperature we have a nice little curve going on which is great. We have heated chillers to do that for us so keeps it going. So then to look into the future we had two different scenarios. We had what we called the do something scenario which was reducing our emissions and that resulted in about a two degree increase and a decrease in the PCO2 in the water. We then had the business as usual scenario. So this was no reducing emissions we just keep producing as we have been. This one resulted in about a four degree increase in temperature and a higher increase in the PCO2. We ran that for about 18 months and the results from that were quite startling. So the pre-industrial and the control both survived quite well. The pre-industrial did seem to do a little bit better in the productivity but the control reef did look fairly happy. But then when you start to look at the two future scenarios things didn't look quite so good. The do something scenario in the first summer we had all the coral bleach so they lost their symbionts they weren't able to synthesize anymore. And then during the summer some of those coral died but some of them actually survived in their bleach state. So one of the brain corals did we had a priority survive and some fungier and then during this winter period they were actually able to recover some of their color and pigmentation which was really great to see and then again the next following summer they bleached but they were alive they were in there and calcification was occurring in those tanks. When you then went to the do nothing scenario it was even worse. You had everything bleach during the first summer and then everything in there died and that was the same state throughout the whole 18 months after they died and that included the algae there wasn't much algae in there or the coral were dead and you basically had cyanobacteria taking over and what was worse was that there was no calcification occurring. So we had net decalcification happening which means for our future reefs that not only are the reefs lost but we're losing the habitat for other organisms because there's no reef structure and we're also losing coastal protection for human communities and things like that. So then we looked at what was causing temperature or PCO2. They're unlikely not to occur together but we would like to tease that out a little bit so that leads us to today's experiment and again we've got four treatments. The blue treatments here is again our control treatment so today's temperature and PCO2. We have our red treatment which is the increased temperature and PCO2. We have our green treatments which is increased PCO2 and then we have the yellow treatments which is increased temperature but those two maintain today's of the other value. So the red treatment is the do nothing. It is the do nothing of the last experiment yeah so this tank does not have a very bright future. So and this is equivalent to the do nothing in your first experiment. That's right this is going to be exactly the same as doing that experiment in this tank. So and so the purpose of this new experiment is to tease apart the relative contributions of either CO2 or warming to impacting corals. Yeah kind of see what effect individually those two aspects have. So we're seeing what happens together. Does the same thing happen separately. So we'll see in about a year's time. So what did the first experiment tell you about Coral's ability to adapt or recover from acidification and from bleaching? What was scary about the first experiment is that corals don't seem to have adapted fully to today's conditions. So the pre-industrial did do better than the control treatment. So that means that from pre-industrial times to today they haven't adapted. So the projecting that into the future if they haven't adapted to today's conditions it's unlikely that they're going to be able to adapt to the rapidly changing increasing temperatures in PCO2. So much better to reduce as much as we can now. Now given the the effects you see from your experiments on corals what I guess how will those effects then ripple through ocean ecosystems more generally? Well coral reefs are a nursery ground just like mangroves and that are. So many organisms breed in those regions and then spread out from there. So you lose your coral reefs you're going to lose a lot of fish stock you're going to lose a lot of species so that's going to obviously impact on humans in food resources. It's also going to impact us on protection. So the reef provides an area of protection forests from storm surges and cyclones and things like that. So it prevents the big washes onto land. As we lose that reef structure we're also going to lose that protection. So you're going to have a lot more impact onto coastal regions and coastal areas due to that likes of protection. One of the experiment designers over here he talks about these two impacts acidification and warming as like a one-two punch. Looking at each one individually could you explain how specifically warming temperatures in the water how exactly does that affect corals? Well corals are very temperature sensitive so you can have a one degree change over the average yearly temperature and that will affect the coral already so that's not much of a buffer zone there. When you increase the temperature the corals are stressed and they tend to bleach which is losing their symbionts which help them photosynthesize and that often then can result in death. It doesn't always does sometimes they can recover but usually after bleaching quite often does lead to death and certainly at the higher temperatures that is what happens. With acidification you're losing the structure of the skeleton so corals are made out of calcium carbonate and with increasing CO2 it makes the water more acidic and that acidic water then dissolves calcium and stuff like that. So you have less in the water for them to work with and it can also dissolve the skeleton itself. One thing I was wondering also was how did you get into coral reef research yourself? I started out with Sophie in Ove's lab actually. I undertook my undergrad at the University of Queensland and I was looking for an honours project to undertake and Sophie had advertised for an honours project looking at the effects of nitrogen on corals so I thought it sounded interesting so I approached Sophie and she was happy to take me on board. I then undertook honours with the lab and then went on to do my PhD and then through that when I was finished the PhD I was looking for a job. Lab manager came up for the lab and very happily got that position so yeah. Prior to your honours year were you already attracted to marine biology or to coral research in any way? Well I've always loved the ocean so I decided to do a Bachelor of Marine studies so focus on the ocean in general. I hadn't thought so much about coral in particular as with most people it was the cute furry mammals and well not so much furry in the water but the lovely mammals and turtles and big things but then when you get into it and you really see what's out there it's the little things you know that live on the reef and out there that really is what gives it the diversity and the amazing abundance and colour that's out there and you know a lot of that is in the reefs so yeah studying them and looking at them it's just never ending what you can see and learn from them it's great. And I guess your research is finding that those little things are just an important part of the food chain and what happens to them then affects the rest of the ecosystem? Definitely everything is interconnected you know you have your keystone species where you take out one the whole lot tumbles but when you're talking about big scale changes that we are here you're talking about taking out many species so even without taking out the keystone species knocking out that number of species is going to have dramatic effects on the entire ecosystem out there. Would you have any tips for scientists who are looking to communicate what's happening to coral reefs and happening about climate change in general? Do you have any tips for communicating the science? Get it out there talk to as many people as you can you know talking to your friends and neighbours is great talking to family but you know when you just meet other people and if it happens to come up in conversation it's great to share it then you know just general awareness of what's happening so that you understand where we're at and then communicating that to others as you go along. Could you give a short statement about how humans are affecting climate change if you have to summarize it in a in a short... That's a tough one. Yeah it is a one and possibly from the point of view of your research what's your been experiencing and what have you seen? Well I've seen effects even on Heron Island from the effect the thing with humans and the impacts on coral reefs is we're affecting them in so many different ways it's not just increasing the co2 in the atmosphere it's the way we fish it's how much we fish it's what we're putting into our streams that they run into the oceans there are so many impacts that we're having that the accumulative effect is really severe so you're not just looking at one thing which potentially you know they could survive you're putting so much stress on them as we grow in the coastal communities and everything like that so for me it's not just one thing it's a whole heap of effects that are happening to the coral all at once