Watching coral reefs die in a warming ocean

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The Chagos Archipelago is one of the most remote, seemingly idyllic places on Earth. Coconut-covered sandy beaches with incredible bird life rim tropical islands in the Indian Ocean, hundreds of miles from any continent. Just below the waves, coral reefs stretch for miles along an underwater mountain chain.

It’s a paradise. At least it was before the heat wave.

Can the Chagos Archipelago keep pace with rising seas?

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Having first visited the Chagos Archipelago in 2006, it was an immense pleasure to return with the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation under the auspices of the Global Reef Expedition. Returning to the archipelago offered the chance to continue work that had been initiated nearly a decade earlier by other scientists—monitoring of the fish assemblages and health of the coral—but also begin new science initiatives.

Following the discovery of a rich portfolio of vintage aerial photographs for the Chagos Archipelago taken in 1963, we are examining the dynamics of the coastlines of the many islands in the archipelago in an effort to understand how low-lying atoll islands respond to rising sea level. Largely uninhabited, Chagos is one of very few places in the world where the behavior of islands can be tracked in the absence of artificial coastline modifications. That is, “natural” island behavior can be quantified.

Coral Reefs: Trouble in Paradise

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In the middle of the Indian Ocean, more than 1000 miles from the nearest continental landmass, the research vessel Golden Shadow arrives in paradise. For the scientists aboard, it’s a moment they have been waiting for, a chance to explore a world almost empty of human impacts but full of life. They’re hoping these flourishing reefs will reveal secrets of how other reefs can survive the looming onslaught of climate change, but what they find challenges their expectations—both in the sea and on land. Their amazing journey offers new insights into the dangers facing coral reefs worldwide.

Reef fish thriving in the Chagos Archipelago

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The Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation conducted two coral reef research missions in the Chagos Archipelago as components of our Global Reef Expedition. Between March and May of 2015 the Living Oceans Foundation and a team of international scientists assessed the status of coral reefs and coral reef species within 12 large areas in the Chagos Archipelago. The Chagos Archipelago is hailed by coral reef scientists as one of the last untouched coral habitats in the Indian Ocean with incredible live coral cover and species diversity. But perhaps what rivaled the lush coral landscape was the thriving reef fish communities.

Coral Bleaching: A Shift in Perspective

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As a marine ecologist, being able to survey the reefs of the Chagos Archipelago, considered the last frontier of coral reefs, was a very exciting prospect. After many hours flying, and even more on the ship transiting to our first destination, we finally arrived in the British Indian Ocean Territory Marine Protected Area where the Chagos reefs are found. From our first dive, I knew this would be a trip to remember. Prior to this, I had participated on many of the GRE expeditions, but this one felt different. I was awestruck by the beautiful reefs with large, healthy assemblages of corals and incredible fish communities. We came across unique reefs with monospecific stands of corals unlike seen in other parts of the world. The benthic communities appeared to be thriving with a balance of coral, CCA, other algae that supported the flourishing invertebrate and fish populations.

However, later in our trip, things started to change right before our eyes. We later discovered we were the first to observe what would be one of the most catastrophic global bleaching events on record. The water was exceptionally warm, causing the beautiful coral we had been observing to show signs of stress.

KSLOF Publishes Findings from the Global Reef Expedition Mission to the Chagos Archipelago

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Today, the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation published our findings on the state of coral reefs in the Chagos Archipelago. This research mission gave us the chance to study some of the most isolated and well-protected coral reefs in the world. Our research, based on thousands of scientific surveys, found reefs in the Chagos Archipelago were some of the most diverse and had a higher density of fish than all of the reefs studied on the Global Reef Expedition, the largest coral reef survey and mapping expedition in history.