Sun Screen and coral bleaching

[Reefugee]

Background: Coral bleaching (i.e., the release of coral symbiotic zooxanthellae) has negative impacts on biodiversity and functioning of reef ecosystems and their production of goods and services. This increasing world-wide phenomenon is associated with temperature anomalies, high irradiance, pollution and bacterial diseases. Recently, it has been demonstrated that personal care products, including sunscreens, can have an impact on aquatic organisms similar to that of other contaminants.

Objectives: Evaluate the potential impact of sunscreen ingredients on hard corals and their symbiotic algae.

Results: Sunscreens cause the rapid and complete bleaching of hard corals, even at extremely low concentrations. The effect of sunscreens is due to organic UV filters, which are able to induce the lytic viral cycle in symbiotic zooxanthellae with latent infections.

Conclusions: We conclude that sunscreens, by promoting viral infection, can potentially play an important role in coral bleaching in areas prone to high levels of recreational use by humans.

Full article PDF: http://www.ehponline.org/members/2008/10966/10966.pdf

The Journal of National Institute of Environmental Health Science (NIEHS) is one of the well respected science journal. It's one of the institutes of NIH.

Note: I briefly skimmed the article, and haven't read the full article in details (sight is still blurry from laser eye surgery). So how many of you wash your hand before putting it in the tanks? ;-)

 

[P.Kelly]

dang... Minh, good find!!!!

 

[mike1962]

Hmm, not good, but also not too surprising.

Here's an interesting statement from the article

"We consider a conservative measure of two daily application per tourist on 5 day average tourist package, and a rough estimate of 78 million of tourists year-1 in areas hosting reefs (10% world tourist registered in 2004, UNWTO). Based on this calculation and on annual production of UV filters, between 16,000 and 25,000 tons of sunscreens are expected to be used in tropical countries.According to our experiment it is estimated that at least 25% of the amount applied is washed off during swimming and bathing, accounting for a potential release of 4,000-6,000 tons year-1 in reef areas. Since 90% of tourists are expected to be concentrated in ca. 10% of the total reef areas, we estimated that up to 10% of the world reefs is potentially threatened by sunscreen- induced coral bleaching."

Oh, and yes, I do actually wash my hands before and after fiddling around in my tank.

 

[bored4long]

I don't have time to read the article now, but thanks for posting, Minh.

This is a very good argument for SPF clothing. Unlikely we can convince many tourists to cover up on the beach, though. Overall, this is a depressing discovery.

 

[funman1]

They are still working on that sun screen pill.
I'll be very interested in that if and when it makes it through FDA

 

[MrMikeB]

Soo... save a coral, and get skin cancer! Or save the air, and kill a reef (ref: Corn irrigation effects on the Gulf). I am always amazed on just how well connected everything is in this world and no one action can go without an opposite reaction.

Now if we can get the stonies to drop zooxanthellae and go with a more stable partner...

 

[bored4long]

nano technology!

nano technology!

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11821070#post11821070 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by MrMikeB
Soo... save a coral, and get skin cancer! Or save the air, and kill a reef (ref: Corn irrigation effects on the Gulf). I am always amazed on just how well connected everything is in this world and no one action can go without an opposite reaction.

Now if we can get the stonies to drop zooxanthellae and go with a more stable partner...

I hereby lay claim to photosynthesizing nano technology. Patent Pending! :rollface: