BRISBANE - Where would a marine biologist wish to live more than on an island overlooking the ocean? Daniela Ceccarelli is living the dream on Queensland’s Magnetic Island, a small corner of paradise with 2000 inhabitants about forty minutes by ferry from Townsville.
Ceccarelli is employed in the Australian Marine Science Institute’s long-term coral reef monitoring program where she has spent 120 days each year since 2021 on a boat collecting data from more than 100 coral reefs.
The data is then compared with data from the last 40 years, when the program was established.
Her interest in the world under the sea was born almost by accident, when Ceccarelli was in primary school watching a documentary.
“I was going to school at a small international institute in Aleppo, Syria, where I moved from Italy for about seven years with my family because of dad’s job,” Ceccarelli recalled.
“Every Thursday, the principal would get us together to watch an episode of the BBC documentary Life on Earth, and one afternoon the topic was coral reefs. From there my interest was sparked.”
Ceccarelli was obsessed the ocean ever since, eventually inspiring her to move to Switzerland to pursue her studies.
Before finishing high school, however, Ceccarelli came to Australia for a vacation, during which she visited James Cook University in Townsville, home to a major marine science department, in which the young student immediately decided to enrol.
One year later, Ceccarelli boarded a plane bound for Brisbane and “the rest is history,” she said with a laugh.
After university and a scuba diving course, Ceccarelli completed her PhD, specialising in the study of coral reefs.
“What we are seeing in recent months is one of the most significant bleaching events in years,” she explained.
“The data we’re collecting is worrying, and studies say that a situation this severe hasn’t been seen in at least half a century.”
To help us understand what coral reef bleaching means, the scientist said it starts with the formation of corals, which are tiny marine animals, called polyps, that live in colonies.
To feed themselves, polyps catch microscopic algae inside their skin that, through the process of photosynthesis, release their main form of nutrition, sugar. The colouration of coral reefs is due to the pigment of the algae which are visible through the clear tissue of the polyp.
When the water’s temperature is too high, algae become toxic to the corals which must then expel them. As a result of this, the coral loses its colour and becomes transparent, allowing a glimpse of the colour of their ‘skeleton’ which is white.
“This is why we talk about bleaching. Bleached coral is a very stressed and starved coral, and the main cause is rising water temperatures,” said Ceccarelli.
The great news is that bleaching is not necessarily an irreversible process. If water temperatures drop within a short enough period of time, corals can reabsorb algae and return to their previous condition.
Even if an entire reef were to bleach, it could still recover thanks to new corals from nearby reefs that are still healthy and carried by currents.
However, there are two other conditions that endanger this valuable ecosystem: cyclones and coral-eating starfish whose population can increase uncontrollably.
Despite being native to Australian waters, starfish are considered pests and have dedicated programs aimed at controlling their population.
“The last bleaching occurred in 2016 and 2017, and large portions of the reef died during that time,” recalled Ceccarelli.
“Since 2017, there hadn’t been many episodes. There hadn’t been cyclones … or starfish,” Ceccarelli recalled.
“The situation seemed quite stable, and the reefs had recovered, but in recent months the situation has dramatically worsened.
“The concern is that these heat waves caused by climate change will become the norm and will be so frequent that the coral doesn’t have time to recover.”
If coral reefs were to die, millions of marine species would die with them.
Ceccarelli believes studying underwater life comes with more challenges than life on land.
“Doing research underwater is complicated,” she shared, “and with all these ecological crises we are experiencing, it is urgent to know more - and quickly.
“It’s very difficult to protect an environment you don’t know well. For example, it’s critical we understand which species are most important to save for the [wellbeing of the whole] ecosystem.
“If we don’t have enough information, we don’t know where to focus our efforts.”
There are many frontlines in the battle for safeguarding coral reefs. Some are activist, others academic and political.
“For example, one of the working groups at the Australian Institute of Marine Science is conducting research to understand whether and how well coral is able to adapt to rising temperatures,” shared Ceccarelli.
“A coral breeding program is also active, through which hundreds of small polyps have been released into the sea, with the hope that they will repopulate the reef.
“Most of the research right now,” summarises the marine biologist, “is focused on how to alleviate the impact of human intervention on coral reefs.”
However, Ceccarelli believes we have to solve the root of the problem.
“The priority remains slowing climate change and finding long-term solutions,” she was keen to specify.
Ceccarelli believes the role her and her colleagues play is that of “messengers”.
“We bring information out of the sea for the people who make decisions,” she claimed.
“We translate the signals that the ecosystem gives us. The sea is very important for the Earth and for all of us.
“Two-thirds of the oxygen we breathe comes from the sea.”
