BIODIVERSITY OF THE CORAL TRIANGLE
By Herton Escobar
Just overnight, the luxury suite of the beachfront hotel is transformed into a biology laboratory. Around the big bed covered with white sheets in the center of the room, a series of small workstations take shape: one for triage, two for photography, three for sampling and preservation of specimens. Out of the scientists’ suitcases come wetsuits, nets, microscopes, calipers, drums of ethanol and thousands of little transparent plastic tubes and cups that, three days later, would return home full of crabs, shrimps and other samples of the amazing - but still little known - marine biodiversity of the Coral Triangle.
We are in Pemuteran, on the edges of the Java Sea, on the northwest coast of Bali, the most touristic island of Indonesia. The black sand beaches and jagged shadow of the volcanoes on the horizon are signs of a region in restless transformation, where biological and geological processes have historically formed an explosive combination for the generation of new species. A successful evolutionary partnership that, over millions and millions of years, helped produce and continues to sustain some of the most diverse marine ecosystems on the planet.
For the tourists in the next-door suites, an ideal destination to relax, observe colorful fish and admire beautiful landscapes. For the scientists, a perfect natural laboratory for unraveling the mysteries of the Triangle's biodiversity. The colorful fish, in this case, are not the cause of interest. The team, composed of about 40 American and Indonesian biologists, is on the lookout for a group of organisms that are even more abundant and more diverse than fish, but that very few people have had the privilege to see in this region.
Led by renowned biologists Paul Barber, of the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), Chris Meyer and Nancy Knowlton of the Smithsonian Institution, the expedition aims to conduct the first biodiversity inventory of dead coral heads in the Triangle. A strategy that may sound contradictory at first, but it is not. When a coral colony dies, its calcareous skeleton that remains behind, full of with cracks, caves and tunnels, becomes a perfect habitat for countless species of invertebrates that, like the insects on the surface, make up most of the biodiversity in the oceans.
"There are many more things living in a reef than just fishes and corals," says Meyer. And most of them are living within the coral, literally, hidden from the curious wandering eyes of tourists and scientists.
If the goal is to sample the greatest number of species with the smallest possible volume of material, therefore, there is nothing better underwater than a piece of dead coral. Once the first heads reach the surface, it’s easy to understand why. Armed with hammer and chisel, Meyer begins to break one of them over a tray. Around the table, wide-eyed students and teachers watch like curious children, squeezing shoulder against shoulder to see what will come out of there. With each hammer strike, life seems to spring from the dead coral head. Crabs, shrimp, snails, slugs, worms, starfish, sea urchins, and even small fish and octopuses flow into the yellow tray, where they are collected with tweezers and quickly separated into clear plastic cups.
"It was amazing. I never imagined there could be so many things living inside the coral”, recalls Defy Pada, 28, one of the Indonesian students with most diving experience in the group.
Most organisms are no bigger than a few inches, or even millimeters. But it doesn’t matter. Everything that moves is collected from the tray. And before long, people start running out of space for so many plastic cups.
Since there is no research infrastructure in the area, the laboratory has be improvised at the hotel. Around the elegant bed, a production line comes into life for processing the samples. Each specimen undergoes a preliminary identification, receives a control number, is photographed, cataloged, preserved in alcohol, and have tissue samples collected for DNA analysis. Information that will later enable scientists to study in detail the composition, structure and evolutionary history of these organisms and their ecosystems.
The euphoria of the researchers over the flooding of cups is evident. Even among the more senior scientists, who broke dead coral heads in various parts of the world before – but never in the Coral Triangle. "The diversity of life here is really amazing. At first, we thought we might find some 200 species, but it will be much more than that. Maybe 400 or 500, " says Barber. "I guarantee you that there are more species of crustaceans in these cups than there are of fish out there on the beach."
After two days of intense work, 20 heads of dead coral* gave birth to some two thousand specimens of invertebrates - an average of more than one hundred animals per head (each of them not much bigger than a shoebox). Not to mention all the sponges, algae and other organisms that live attached to the coral skeleton. Nor the hundreds of sea urchins, worms, snails, cucumbers and starfish that were released back into the ocean, because they are not the focus of the study. Processing, preserving and identifying everything in the coral heads would be insane, so the researchers choose to keep only the decapods (organisms with ten legs), represented by crabs, shrimps and lobsters – the standard methodology for this type of study.
It is likely that many of the organisms collected are new species. But that is not what most interests the researchers. The main goal of the research is not necessarily to know "what" species live there, but "how many" – of what kind, with what abundances and what patterns of distribution. Once they know that for the decapods, it will be possible to make a series of further inferences about the biodiversity and the health of the ecosystem as a whole. What matters is the diversity within the collection, more than the identity of its individuals.
The exact number of species will only be determined later, based on a combination of genetic and morphological analysis of the collected material. But scientists have no doubt that they have already found something totally out of the ordinary. It only took a quick glance over the cups to notice the incredible diversity of shapes and sizes of the animals in them. Like in a card collecting game, it was hard to find repetitive figures. Many species were represented in the total sample by only one or two individuals. "Which is a sign of true diversity," says biologist Seabird McKeon, of the Smithsonian Marine Science Network.
"Out of every 100 individuals, 70 appear to be different, unique," says Meyer, surprised. "The amount of life may even be the same as elsewhere, but the diversity of species represented in it is much higher."
After two nights processing samples, researchers still manage to install 18 Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures (ARMS), submerged instruments that function as artificial reefs for the recruitment of larvae and other small animals present in the environment. After a year, they will be collected and examined, giving scientists another sample of the "invisible" biodiversity of the Triangle.
"It will be very interesting to compare the results from here with those from other parts of the world," says Knowlton, who has been studying coral reefs for more than 40 years and yet, was amazed by what she saw in Pemuteran. "I've never seen so much diversity in such a short time."
The last day of the expedition is dedicated to packing up and undoing the metamorphosis of the vacation suite. Microscopes and biology books disappear, replaced by lamps, decorations and celebrity magazines. Scientists leave, tourists return. In the guest book that lies on the headboard, the son of Meyer leaves a message for the next incoming guests: "You wouldn’t believe the science that was produced here."
END
(*After watching the final group presentations I realized there were actually 21 dead coral heads, and not 20. So small mistake there ... sorry!)
THE CORAL TRIANGLE – STORY 2
If coral reefs are the "forests of the ocean," as biologists like to say, the Coral Triangle is the Amazon of the reefs. Large, dense, magnificent, and with a quantity of life large enough to disorient your senses. At times, the sensation of diving in the region is similar to flying a helicopter over the Amazon, only with fish instead of birds and multicolored corals instead of the trees, stretching out of sight, like a living carpet in all directions.
The comparison is fair, from a scientific standpoint, and could even be reversed, from a chronological point of view, considering that life began in the seas and coral reefs are actually much older than forests. "I would say that the Amazon is the Coral Triangle of the surface," says American biologist Robert Lasley, who is studying crabs in the region.
With nearly 6 million square kilometers, an area equivalent to 70% of Brazil (greater even than the Amazon), the Coral Triangle includes six countries: Indonesia, Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, East Timor and part of Malaysia. An enormous marine world punctuated by thousands of islands and decorated by thousands of square kilometers of coral reefs which, in combination with mangroves and several other coastal habitats, make home to the largest variety of marine species on the planet. Only of corals, there are over 600 species recorded - 75% of the known species in the world. In the Caribbean, by comparison, has 58.
"That’s how it is here in the Triangle. The numbers are so large that even scare you a little bit," says environmentalist Ketut Putra, diretor of Conservation International in Indonesia. I ask him how many species of reef fish are known in the region. Answer: 1125. "In all of the Triangle?" I ask again, just to be sure. "No, just here in Bali (one of the islands of Indonesia)," says Ketut, laughing with joy. In the entire Triangle, there are about 2500.
Scientist Chris Meyer, from the Smithsonian Institution, estimates that the total biodiversity of the Triangle - including all animal groups - is 300 thousand to 500 thousand species, representing between 30% and 50% of all marine biodiversity on the planet, according to the estimate of 1 million species made by the Census of Marine Life. "I would say at least one third, for sure," argues Meyer.
The state of health of the reefs is also similar to the Amazon rainforest. "Much has been destroyed, but much remains to be saved," says biologist Lida Pet Soede, head of the Coral Triangle Programme of WWF.
According to the latest report Reefs at Risk, produced by the World Resources Institute, the reefs of Southeast Asia are "the world's most threatened." The same regions that appear in scientific journals with large red spots, representing the highest concentrations of biodiversity, also appear red on the maps of the report, representing the highest degrees of threat.
A reality that is not obvious. At first glance, the reefs seem of the Triangle seem as healthy as a reef can be, with a staggering diversity and abundance of corals, sponges, fish, mollusks and other invertebrates. Under the watchful eye of the scientists, however, worrying signs begin to appear. The most obvious is the lack of large predators like sharks and groupers, victimized by overfishing.
"That’s how it began in the Caribbean (where live coral cover has been reduced by 80% in the last few decades)," says biologist Seabird McKeon, of the Smithsonian Institution. "The same signals that scientists saw there in the 1960s and 1970s are beginning to show up here."
"The reefs are impacted, yes. You can see the footprint of human beings on them, "says Nancy Knowlton, also of the Smithsonian. "Everything still looks beautiful, but that’s just because we're in the Coral Triangle."
Several initiatives are underway to avoid the worst and perhaps regain what has been lost. Both by scientists and NGOs, as well as by local governments and communities who have recognized the importance of maintaining the reefs for the protection of tourism, fish stocks and the local culture. If the Coral Triangle will share the fate of the Caribbean or of the Amazon, only time will tell.
THE CORAL TRIANGLE – STORY 3
The field research in Pemuteran is an initiative of the Indonesian Biodiversity Research Center (IBRC in English), a teaching and research laboratory created in June 2010 with funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Housed in a building of the veterinary school of Udayana University in Denpasar, the capital of Bali, the center aims to provide basic infrastructure for research and to train Indonesian students and teachers to produce high-level science, with an initial focus on marine biodiversity.
The curriculum includes courses on evolution and molecular ecology, phylogenetics and marine biodiversity inventory methods (such as those used in the expedition), as well as English classes. The courses are taught by American professors, in partnership with staff from three local universities: Udayana, Diponegoro and Negeri Papua.
The "father" of the initiative is Professor Paul Barber, of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology of the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), who has been researching the marine biodiversity of the Triangle for more than ten years. "My goal is to have the largest possible number of people doing research here, in a level that is compatible with what Indonesia deserves," he in his first lecture of the molecular ecology course, in June. Sitting in the chairs in front of him, an audience of 20 undergraduate students, postgraduate students and professors from the three local universities, the Indonesian Institute of Sciences and Conservation International, as well as six young American ethnic minority undergraduate students, selected by The Diversity Project - another initiative of Barber, who is half Mexican and aims to increase the participation of these minorities in the biological sciences.
All the material collected during the course will be divided equally between American and Indonesian institutions.