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SYSK Selects: How Coral Reefs Work · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Hey there, everybody, it's me Josh and for this week's
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: s Y s K Selects, I've chosen how Coral Reefs
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Work from two thousand twelve, I think March or two
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: thousand twelve, and it's a good one. It's got a
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: lot of science. There's a lot of interesting marine biology
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: to learn, and plus it's just good to get to
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: know this very rare form of life that we are
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: very rapidly erasing from the global biosphere. So I hope
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: you enjoy this very eye opening episode on coral reefs.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Clark with me as always as Charles W. Chuck Bryant,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: and that makes this stuff you shouldn't know. So I
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: just noticed your cold is cleared up. Yeah a little bit.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: I still have the the an interior lining and very
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: thick all right. The other than that, Yeah, you sound fine,
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: that's all. You know what it was tons of emergency
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: used to wash down tons of vitamin B stress, which
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: is like tons of just different vitamin b's. I eat
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: solar ray um and Scotch right single malt Scott just
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: my secret ingredient um and lots of licene, A couple
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: of licenes every time, like thousands and thousands of percentages
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: of daily value. Like just it just makes the FDA
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: cringe that I take as much. That's what I do.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: I just load up on like everything, like triple it. Yep,
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: there you go, take that body, So I'm fine. Good
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: now you has it? Oh does she the same exact thing?
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: And she doesn't like when I tell her to take vitamins? Yeah,
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: but that you know, you live together, you drink after
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: one another. Just suck face, just like I'll leave like
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: emergency here. They're like laying around. Oh did I leave that? Oops?
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: That's already dissolved the water even and it's going down
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: your gullet, um chuck. Yes, did you know that I
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: am a certified scuba diver? I sure did. Oh yeah
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: you did not thought for sure. You're gonna be like, no,
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: I didn't know. We've talked about this. Yeah, we've even
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: scuba dive together, haven't. That's right. That was the first
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: time I heard about it. I'm not the sharpest tack
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: in the package, um, but I say that to tell
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: you that I was certified at a place called Isla
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Mueris off the coast of Cosumel, which just so happens
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: to also be the home of the second largest barrier
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: reef known to man. What's it called to humans? I
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: don't know. It is not called anything, because there's the
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: great barrier reef and then there's all the other all
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: the other ones, but this is the second largest, which
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: is pretty big. Because there's a lot of barrier reefs.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of coral reefs in the world. But
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: after reading this article, I found that there is a
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: lot about coral reefs that I didn't know. Unfortunately, we
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: had Jennifer Horton, who I'm sure you'll remember worked at
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: the site for a while. Yeah, she's a great writer.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: He's a great writer. We had. We had her to
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: explain it to us and like, I get coral reefs now.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: In fact, Jennifer has written many of the animal related
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: podcasts that we've done, um Bison. I think maybe she
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: wrote a lot of the animal stuff, animal migration, lots
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: of good ones. To miss you, Jennifer, I hope you're
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: well if you listen. I wonder who were they? Right?
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Remember those guys? I hated those two all right? Coral reefs.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: This was all new to me. The rainforest of the
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: sea of the Equatorial Seas home to about of all
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: the species. Yeah, that's crazy. In fact, right, Um, the
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Great Barrier Reef has more more kinds of coral um
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: on like one just single little outcropping of it, then
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: you'll find in the entire tropical area of the Atlantic Ocean. Wow. Yeah,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: that's amazing. I don't know why I just said that. There.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: The Aussies are gonna they're gonna be so stoked with
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: this podcast. Probably anytime they can like claim to something
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: like that, they're just like, yeah, yeah, drank exactly. They're
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: gonna go poor beer on the Great Barrier Reef. Um.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: It's the coral reefs are very beneficial to humans in
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: a number of ways. Economically, sure, because there's a lot
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: of sea life and thus people fishing for shrimp and
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: lobster and things like that. Right, in all sorts of
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: weird ways which we'll get too later. Um. They also
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: protect the beach from erosion. They act as natural buffers
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: from huge waves wave action, that's right. Yeah, Well, let's
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: talk about that. Because you think of when you think
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: of coral, you think of huge you know Great Barrier Reef.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: It's enormous. It's like, um, I think there's eighteen thousand
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: miles total of coral face face that is on the
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: Great Barrier Reef. Actually, an individual coral called a polyp um,
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: is about three millimeters long. Yeah, that's small, super tiny
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: for those of you in America. Uh, they are, Well,
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: science got it wrong early on. We should go ahead
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: and say that they um at one point fairly uh
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: understandably thought that it might be plant life because it
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: sort of looks like it. Yeah, like you know, like
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: the coral fan. Yeah, that's a bunch of those little
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: three millimeter corals building up into a fan. It looks
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: like it looks like a plant. Yeah. So they got
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: it wrong, and they're actually not only are they real
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: living little sea creatures, but they're carnivores. Yeah, which is
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: you know, you would never think about that. No, but
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: they're in the phylum Sindaria Nideria. Why would they put
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: the sea there? It's silent, man, You know, I appreciate
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: a silent letter. I'm smarter than my pronunciations would suggest.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: I started looking this up because I feel like an idiot.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: So they're in the phial of nydaria, which means um
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: that they have stinging cells, barbed stinging cells um called
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: ne maticist that's right. So um they use this to
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: capture their prey, but the prey kind of has to
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: come to them because they're also sessile, which means they're
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: fixed to a certain spot. Yeah seriously, Yeah, uh so
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: it is understandable also that they got it wrong because
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: coral has a unique property. It is almost half plant
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: because there's this algae in the cells. I want to
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: pronounce it, Okay, go ahead. It's called zus anthely, you're right,
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: very nice. Starts with a Z and there's an X
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: in there somewhere. And then so what happens with there's
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: a very mutually beneficial relationship between the algae and the polyp.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: They do a little exchange the polyp itself, well supply,
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry. The algae will undertake photosynthesis, yes, as algae
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: tends to do. As algae will do, and it will say, hey,
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: mr polyp, why don't you take all this stuff that
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: i've I've made within your cell walls and and convert
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: it to proteins and fats. It poops out like amino
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: acids and cards for the polyp, and in return, why
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: don't you give me a nice shelter, And you can
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: also produce some carbon and nitrates and pop fates that
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: I need to produce the photosynthesis to give you the
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: proteins and fats that you need. So it's what you
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: might call a symbiotic relationship. Exactly, one's helping the other.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: And um, you can make the case that the coral
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: is getting the better end of the deal because coral
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: gets about the energy produced through photosynthesis by the zoos anthely,
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: right yeah, um, but that also makes the coral more
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: dependent on the zoos anthely. And the zoos anthely it's
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: a algae of very little needs. It's not needy, it's
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: not grabby. It's not gonna call you up every Friday
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: night wondering what you're doing, Why you aren't here? Are
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: you talking about me? No? No, Jerry like that one.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: So um. The the symbiotic relationship between the zuox anthely
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: and the coral polyps also produce coral reefs. Um. The
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: polyps use some of that energy, some of that amino acid,
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: to create something called calcium carbonate, and that's the hard stuff. Right,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: that's limestone, my friend. Yeah. They produce limestone out of
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: their butt hawks to create a cup, a little shelter
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: for the polyp to stay in. And since the algae
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: stays in the polyp, it creates a shelter for both, right. Yeah,
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: and this limestone secretion can keep building and building and
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: building because again, coral stays in the same place there cecile.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: That's right, and um as as long as they're still
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: secreting lime stone, the limestone structure they build will just
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: keep getting bigger and bigger. Eventually love it. That's just
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: one three millimeter long, coral. Yes, what you want to
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: do is get thousands together strengthened numbers. Yeah, then you
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: have a coral fan yeah, or a colony, and then
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: those colonies will eventually meet up with other colonies uh
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: and say, hey, you guys interested in forming a wreef
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: because we're pretty indestructible, although that's not quite true. We're
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: more indestructible if we all hook up my brothers, like
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: you said, strengthened numbers, and when they hook up, their
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: limestone secretions can start to join together forming a reef.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: But they're also um connected by a thin piece of tissue.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: You got this one called a seen a sark. That's
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: what I was gonna go for. I was just tired
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: of humiliating myself for this episode. I would have called
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: it a kna sark, So I was a way off.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: I'm really glad to look that Celia canth it's a
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: scene of sark um. And that's how the the coral
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: themselves are through limestone secretions and through this tissue called
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: the sin of sark. They're connected, right, but how would
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: they grow? Well, there's two ways. Many they can reproduce. Yeah,
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: a couple of ways, so right, sexually or a sexually?
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: I know which one I choose. A sexual, Yeah, because
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: you're cloning. That's pretty remarkable. Anyone can just get together
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: and you know mate. Sexually, it's like here's some sperm
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: in another one's like here's some eggs, and then they
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: get together and then it's just it's no, there's not
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: much to it all, right. A Sexually, though, they actually
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: do divide and produce identical clones of themselves, and that's
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: one way they can grow. And the other way is
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: just to keep pooping out limestone and that will connect
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: with each other. And it just forms a big old
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: yummy wreath. M Um. This is not a fast process though.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: Like if there's a couple of coral that are a
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: few inches away, say three inches away, and they're like,
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: I would like to hook my sine a sark up
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: to your sine a sark and let's poop some limestone
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: I was together and get this reef going. That's beautiful.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: It's gonna take them about a year to get together.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: Can you imagine how frustrating that is to be three
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: inches away and be like, I'd really like to consummate this.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: I'll see you next June. I'm not convinced that coral
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: can experience frustration. You don't think so, I don't. I
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: think that's all they experience frustration. Either that or they're
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: like really really patient, but that three inches of growth
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: a year um has to take place. They're very specific conditions.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: Remember we said that coral reefs are in equatorial waters. Um,
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: not the coral themselves, but the zoos anthely are actually
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: very fickle and picky little organisms and they like specific
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: conditions and as long as the conditions are right for them,
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: then the coral can grow. Because remember the coral are
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: dependent on the zaxananthely to produce the calcium carbonate. That's right, Um,
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: so what are the conditions chuckers Well, you said equatorial,
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: specifically thirty degrees north or south. If you have ever
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: dived in the Bahamas and said, no, that's thirty two
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: degrees north and they have plenty there. It's because the
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: warm Gulf waters spitting out towards the Bahamas, which is
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: one reason the Bahamas is such a popular spot. I
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: would imagine, Yes, I've never been there. You no, my
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: folks drove my car back from the Bahamas. Thoughts you
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: had a car in the Bahamas, you're supposed to say,
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: you're kidding, You're kidding, I must be The Bahamas are islands.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: It's a it's a dead milkman song. It's pitching camaro
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: Oh that's from Bittnick Camara. Yeah, it's the beginning. Jeez,
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: I'm a dummy. That's alright, Chuck. I'm not hip. I'm
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: not hipp either, Chuck. Sunlight is another thing that they
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: need because, and it makes sense if you're gonna undertake photosynthesis,
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: you need sun. So if the water is rich in nutrients,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: believe it or not. That's not great for them because
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: if you've ever looked through if you've ever been under
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: water and seen like a lot of plankton everywhere it
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: filters the sunlight, it's dappled, that's right. And also, as
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: we learned later, UM, the more nutrients there are, the
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: more it will attract uh competition for those nutrients. And
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: that's not good for me either. No, they don't like competitions. Basically,
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: they're just little prima donnas. Example, they are the water,
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: since you're near the equator, should be between seventy three
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: point four and eighty four point two degrees fahrenheit. And
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: I ultimately, if you put all these facts there together
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: ample like clear water and between seventy three and eighty
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: two or twenty three celsius and twenty nine celsius um,
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: you can get up to about ten centimeters or three
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: point nine inches of growth in a year, twice as
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: much on sunny days. Yes, but they're still not going
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: to exceed that three point nine inches most likely because
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: it's might be all the time. But what's cool then
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: is if you think, well that's crazy, you know there's
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: some coral that Um, I've seen coral reefs, and they're big.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: And if it takes three point it takes a year
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: to grow about three point nine inches, say horizontally or vertically,
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: maybe even die diagonally. If it was like a crazy
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: year for them. Um, it must take thousands of years
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: for coral reef to build up. You would be right,
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: my friend, Which is why scientists very affectionately consider coral
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: reefs the old growth forests of the sea. UM. Because
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: when you're looking at coral reef, you're looking at something thousands,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: if not tens of thousands of years old. Which is
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: my question is how long does the coral live? So
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: one thing I didn't get out of this this article.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Did you, oh, how each individual coral, each polypic boll?
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: I don't know. And are they are there their cups,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: the protective cups that they secrete? Um? Are they inhabited
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: by like successive generations, their clones maybe my guests? And
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: I'm guessing here is that there are so many, hundreds
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: of thousands and millions of these packs so tightly together
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: that if one of the little guys dies, it ain't
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: no big thing, because he's surrounded by his living brothers
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: and sisters. But I don't know how long each one lives.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: At this good question, someone will know. Coral sand. If
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: you look at the reef and you think, hey, coral
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: is obviously the skeleton here of this great reef. Uh,
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: it's not just the coral. Coral sand, from what I understand,
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: is little remnants, tiny pieces of coral that are either
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: eaten and pooped out or just chip away because of
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: erosion and waves crashing and bad weather and stuff like that.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: Right right, yeah, and um, but the cool thing is
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: that it doesn't necessarily go anywhere. It can fill in
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: gaps or holes, and then, as luck would have it,
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: there is a type of algae called coral line algae
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: that goes and covers it up. And the structure of
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: the algae acts is like an adhesive that glues the
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: coral sand. So basically it's like this self sustaining repair
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: process that's always going on. Waves of road the coral
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: into coral sand. Certain types of fish choose the coral
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: into coral sand. The sand goes in just drifts into
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: like little pockets where it gets caught in. The algae
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: lays over it bam strong coral well and coral sand
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: is mind which is one of the threats to reefs
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: because they use it for bricks and cement and road fill.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: So if you're mining the coral sand, there's not gonna
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: be that natural spackle to fill in the holes, and
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: thus the reef is jeopardized, which is just one of
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: many ways that research in jeopardy. Apparently one estimate is
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: that um of the world's reefs could be gone in
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: the next few decades. That's scary, very sad. I hope
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: you're scared. I'm scared. Um. This is where I got
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: a little confused, was well, let's talk about the kinds
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: of reefs, because I'm not confused about that. There are
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: basically three categories, depending where they form the fringing reef.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: It's most common it's directly from the shore and they
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: form a border projecting out to the sea. Yeah. It's
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: kind of like, Um, if you go to like Marble
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: Head in Ohio, there's a lighthouse. Um, I think it's limestone.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: It's like it just comes right off the land, right.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: I don't understand how that would be because it's in
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: Lake Erie, which is not fresh water, but who knows.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: It's very similar to that. It's like just a rocky
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: projection jutting out from the land. But it's a coral reef, right,
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: or if it were a coral reef, that's a fringing reef.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: Interesting reef attached to land. Very reef, very similar to
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: the fringing reef, but it has a gap of water
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: between the land and in the reef. Correct. And then
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: my favorite, of course, the atoll. It's a nice one,
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: which is when at one point there was an island
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: or volcano and it sunk, but you still have the
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: circular wreath reef with I guess like a lagoon or something. Yeah,
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: the reefs keeps building, but the mountain is now submerged.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: Pretty cool. Yeah, so you got your three types fringing
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: barrier and at all, Right, the zones is where I
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: get a little confused. So all of these reefs um
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: are kind of broken down into zones. Like remember the
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: bio speleology. How could I forget? Okay, So you've got
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: like the different zones of the This is very similar
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: to that. You've got the back of the reef, and
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: the back is the side closest too short. I think
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: that's what confused me. And then really it is a
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: little confusing but it's from the it's from the viewpoint
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: of the sea. Um. So you've got just imagine like
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: a line and then a bump and then another line,
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: and that's our reef right um on the shore side
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: of the bump, that's the back of the reef. And
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: this is actually where the most life is. Yeah. Um.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: Sometimes it's left high and dry by low tide, but
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: most times it's just this little shallow area that's got
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: tons of sunlight. So there's tons of plankton, which means
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: there's tons of fish. There's a feeding frenzy, there's diurnal
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: temperature changes. It's just very pretty. It's what most people
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: think of when they think about diving on a coral reef. Right.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: Then that bump, that's the ridge or the crest. Okay Um,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: that part the the crest is always exposed at low tide,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: and it may be exposed even at high tide sometimes
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: depending on how big. But it's the tallest point. It
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: also um serves as the wave break for that function
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: of um reefs that protect the lane. This is what
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: the waves smack into, so it's gonna be more easily
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: eroded and probably have more of that natural spackle. Right yes,
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: that was it coralline algae. Probably that was called cora line, yeah,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: oka or coraline whichever, however you want to say it, Chuck,
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: I'm not gonna stress you out, all right, um. And
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: then there's the four reef that's the the ocean side,
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: the seaside, right um. And in that part of the
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: four we find the other side of the crest, the
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: seaside of the crest, there's the buttress zone, which is
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: awesome if you ask me, And that's where you're gonna
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: find if you're shark hunting, that's where you're gonna find
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: like sharks and barracuda and interesting things like that, right,
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: But does it buttress? Is that why they call it
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: the buttress zone? So the buttress consider a buttress is
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: just like a jutting projection of coral limestone, right, just
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: jutting out, and then in between these projections are little
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: channels holes that can go all the way through. I'm
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: not quite sure what the physics are of it, but basically,
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: once a wave goes through this coral reef and hits
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: shore and then gets drawn back out to see these channels,
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: um funnel these spent waves back out to sea, and
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: by funneling them it gives them a more energy, so
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: then they crash into oncoming waves, which reduces the oncoming
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: waves velocity. So all this is is in an attempt
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: naturally to combat the erosion of pounding waves. Yes, awesome,
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah it's pretty cool. Um, that's also a really excellent
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: um shelter for a little fish ease and things like that.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: They want to go into the channel. So, josh, we've
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: talked about the Great Barrier reef uh here and there,
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: but we should give it its proper do as the
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: largest living structure on the planet scene from outer space.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: Everyone loves to throw that back around. Yeah, can see
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: it from outer space. And then made me look something up, chuck, Um,
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: that's it's the largest living structure. Okay, So if if
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: coral reef is an organism, do you know what the
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: second largest living organism is? Um, it's a fungus in
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: Oregon named amarially Ois stay years old. Takes up four
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: square miles or ten square kilometers, single organism. Where is
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: it Oregon, Oregon? Yeah, it's a It's at our friend
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: Van Nostrian's house. So it's a big mushroom. Yeah. Interesting,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: didn't that gross. That is gross. So uh, the Great
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: Barrier reef, we're talking four dwy nine miles or clicks
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: and um, it is not a single reef. It's about
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: three thousand I got so. I'm not sure if that
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: number had declined since this was written or not. But um,
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: Jennifer points out, and like you pointed out earlier, the
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: the full edge of the reef is about UM eighteen
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: and a half thousand miles. So she says, if anyone's
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: ever told you they've died the entire Great Berry Reef,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: their dirty liars. Yes, she said, they're lying because there's
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: no way you couldn't do it in a lifetime. She said,
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: I wonder if somebody told her that, and she like
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: inserted it in the article. I don't know. It's definitely
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: an accusation, it is. It's a weird tien. It's one
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: of the seven natural wonders of the world. More than
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: four coral species, two thousand fish species, four thousand mollusks,
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: and six of the seven sea turtle species. Ease, all
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: right there for the for the googling, nice and the um,
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: like you said, the Australians are gonna be proud of
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: this and they should be back. In nineteen seventy five,
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: apparently it was in some jeopardy and the Australians moved
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: to protect it as a National Marine Park UM and
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: that basically ensured its survival. It's still you know, kind
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: of in rough shape here there is, as I understand.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: But um, six years after that, so let's see, that's
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: one it became a World Heritage Site UM and one
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: percent of the eighteen and a half thousand square miles
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: or eighteen and a half thousand linear miles UM are
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: open to the public except for that one percent to
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: just one percent is dedicated to research only just research,
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: just pretty cool, not very much because all they need
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: bona fide scientists to dive that part. The rest of it,
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: Jennifer points out, is divided into National park zones, which
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: is where you can go, recreate and learn some things.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: And then the rest of it is general use, which
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: means commercial fishing, which I guess there's no better time
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: to get into the threats than right now. Yes, um,
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: there are some coral reefs in trouble um the Great
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: Barrier Reef. Like I said, it's pretty well protected. But say,
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: if you look at some of the reefs in the
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: Philippines have been destroyed and five percent, just five percent
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: are in good condition these days, um ten percent of
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: the world's reefs are now beyond recovery, not just because
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: of human causes, because of the natural causes as well.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: Because everything exists on a life cycle here on Earth,
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: we humans just tend to accelerate it. Ument may die
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: in the next ten to twenty years. So what are
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: Some of the natural threats are obviously harsh weather like hurricanes,
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: um el Nino a weird weather pattern. It's going to
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: increase temperatures, mess with the salinity, a lot more rainfall.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: So an El Nino season could can do some serious damage.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: Bleaching coral bleaching. When they experience as little as like
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: one degree rise in temperature, the algae will be ejected
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: basically from the coral. The algae takes off. Oh it leaves. Yeah,
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: it's like see you in hell, coral. There's a fine
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: line between ejection and and self leaving. It's the chicken
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: and egg thing, maybe you think so. The algae gets
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: the heck out of dodge, turns the coral white, and
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: if you google pictures you can see a lovely coral
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: with like white patches here and there. That's the parts
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: where it's bleached out. And if if this keeps up
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: long enough, the coral dies because again coral has a
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: symbiotic relationship where it's dependent on this zu is Anthony's
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: algae and if the us Anthony's leaves, then the coral
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: dies very sad um. And like you said, it was
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: just a as much as a one degree temperature increase, right,
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: that's not much. There's also predators, like there's things that
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: eat um the coral, the polyps themselves, crabs, worms, snails, barnacles,
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: parrot fish. Those are really pretty I can't do anything
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: about that, pal that's nature at work. But there are
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: things we can do, such as not using dynamite when
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: we fish on coral reefs. It's it's a pretty good start.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: There's forty countries in the world. Over forty countries in
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: the world that allow blast fishing, people using explosives that
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: they drop onto the reef to stun the fish so
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: they can just swoop them up with the net and
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: um basically go fall like a slack jawed yokel wearing
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: nothing but overalls. While they just bring their nets in.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: They just threw dynamite in the water to stunt fish. Well,
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: the dynamite also has a deletrious impact on the reef
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: structure as well. You're gonna go to the grave with
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: that one, aren't you. I saw on Facebook you you
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: put the apostrophe in y'all after the again, mix it up.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: You know what's weird is the iPhone corrects it incorrectly.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: Oh really, yeah, Well they don't know, y'all. They're from California.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: I've always done why apostrophe a l L? That's correct,
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: you all y'all. Now see someone pointed out to me
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: on email that it was, in fact, why a apostrophe LLL? No,
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: it's you all, so I've been doing it right the
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: whole time. No, you're doing it why a apostrophe LLL?
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: Because someone told me to change it. You can't just
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: listen to any know who. Email fans have a delterious
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: effect on me, deletrious. Do you want to look it
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: up right now? Let's talk about blast fishing again. Our
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: cyanide fishing, which is the ugly step sister of blast fishing,
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: which is dumping cyanide onto reefs to kill fish. Again,
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: you have to wear nothing but overalls, no shoot, nothing,
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: no service over fishing period has got a negative effect obviously. Yeah,
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: because you're basically affecting the food chain. You're like, oh,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: we like these guys because they're tasty and I'm sure
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: they won't be missed. Whenever you take any key species
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: out of a an ecosystem, you're in trouble. No good. Um,
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: there's also a runoff. It's a big one because, um,
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: remember they like clear light, the algae do, and uh
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: or clear water and when they're when the water is
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: not clear, they shrivel up because they need sunlight for photosynthesis. Yeah.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: The pollutants went also. Um, I thought it was gonna
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: be pollutants because just pollutants are bad, which they are,
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: but really the reason is pollutants and sewage actually in
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: increase the nutrients, so that attracts harmful algae and uh
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: competition and that's no good. Right, And then we already
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: talked about the mining. So what can we do, chuck, Um,
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: we we've got a few things we can do. You
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: can adopt a reef, you can tons of organizations will
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: let you do that. In fact, if you want to
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: go to adopt dot nature dot org, slash coral reef.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: You can adopt a reef in the Bahamas, Dominican Republic
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: uh poo and Popua New Guinea. Nice, just like that. Yeah,
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: you can funnel money to an organization that will take
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: care of that reef exactly. Um, and that's just one.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: I think you can do it through all kinds of places.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: Didn't you say that you can get your congress person
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: to lobby for stricter oversight of phishing methods. Um, you
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: can boycott products from countries that allow blast fishing or
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: cyanide fishing. Really put the squeeze on the common then
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: in the other country, make him go to his You
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: cannot chip off bits of the coral when you scooba
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: dive because it's just so pretty that you want to
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: take it home. Yeah, that's a big one. Give it
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: to your daughter. Yeah, not good. There's a lot of
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: stuff you can do that you probably should do if
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: you want to save the coral reefs, that's right, and
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: nothing else. Why would you save them? Do you say,
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: if you don't care about snorkeling or anything like that, Well,
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: my friend, if you care about the economy, you will
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: want to save corals because they are valuable the the
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: total value of the asset, that is, the reefs, the
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: reef systems in Florida. In Florida alone, just Florida eight
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: point five billion dollars when you take into account not
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: just tourism, which is a big part of it, but
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: also the estimated hundred and seventies seven thousand jobs that
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: all the industries surrounding it UH create. That's just Florida worldwide,
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: just from tourism and recreation, just tourism recreation that reefs
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: bring in nine point six billion dollars annually. So if
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: you like money, then you should support coral reefs. Twelve
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: of Bolivia's g d P is created by reefs, isn't
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: it crazy? Yeah? So, um, if you don't have a
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: heart about money, makes you liy, then that's you get
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: you going on saving coral reefs as well. That's right.
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: So if you want to learn more about core reefs,
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: including um seeing a diagram of where the four and
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: the back of the reef is, you can type in
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: coral reefs in the search bar how stuff works dot com.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: It'll bring up this great article by Jennifer Horton. Um.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: And since I said Jennifer Horton. It's time now for
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: listener mail. All right, listener mail, Okay, alright, I'm gonna
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: call this good cause from a good person. UM. Hello,
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: s Y s K Team. I wanted to take a
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: minute and thank you for helping me in a really
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: big way. I've been working alone as a volunteer in Malawi,
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: South of Tanzania Malawi Malawi UH since September of two
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: thousand nine, and I happily passed the time listening to
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: your show during my super long, super awesome minibus rides.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: I am building a library and a small village, and
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: a big part of my library is an audio video
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: collection that I've been putting together for the past few years.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: Many of the people in the village are illiterate, so
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: a library full of books just wouldn't do them any good.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: So I started to think of ways I could include
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: everyone in a learning activity. My answer was UH to
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: incorporate documentaries and podcasts on a variety of subjects. So basically,
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: we will choose a topic for the week and use
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: the podcasts as a way of getting people interested, then
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: direct them to read articles and books on the topic
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: or watch documentaries, and have some group discussions. Pretty cool. Um.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: I really believe in the beauty of being inquisitive and
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: interested in life in videos and podcasts really help immerse
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: people in new subjects. Uh. This first library of its
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: kind in the country. Wow. And I'm really hopeful that
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: it helps to open the world up to people who
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: are so often cut off fingers crossed. And that is
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: from Diane Bowls, the founder of the Future found And
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: if you want to check out Diane's awesome work she's doing,
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: you can go to the Future found dot org. Excellent, Chuck,
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: very cool. It's Diane, Diane in Malawi. Yeah, building building,
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: the only library of its kind and it's so cool. Um,
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: thank you very much Diane for doing that. Um. What
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: do you want to hear? If you want to hear
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: of other people making a difference in the world, we
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: always love that. Yeah, you're a sap for that kind
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: of thing, or some good harrowing scuba diving stories one
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: or the other. Okay, So um, that's a great one, Chuck,
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: either doing good in the world or not doing needed whatsoever. Um.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: That could be directed to Chuck and I via Twitter
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: at s y SK podcast. That's our Twitter handle on
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: Facebook dot com. If you go to stuff, you should
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: know his page. That's that um and you can also
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: email us directly. We both get emails sent to the address.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: Stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com. For more
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics, is it how
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. To learn more about the podcast,
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: click on the podcast icon in the upper right corner
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: of our homepage. The how stuff Works iPhone app has arrived.
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: Download it today on iTunes.