El Nino and Australian marine life

[klausi]

I am diving regularly in the Sydney area, and I am observing that at this time of the year, the beginning of winter, we still have a lot of subtropical and tropical marine animals around, and none of the usual winter visitors, like the Port JAckson sharks or the seals near Wollongong. I think this is connected to the building El Nino we are having this year. I wrote about these observations in more detail in my blog. Enjoy! Is anyone else in other areas making similar observations?

This is a - quite tropical - butterflyfish I have been seeing in Sydney waters for a while now - the coloration on the shot is it's night color. Can anyone ID the fish?

 

[drbill]

Still waiting for the real impact of El Nino to hit the US West Coast. We had above average water temps in winter and spring though. If this is a full blown El Nino, we may lose our giant kelp for the duration which will affect a lot of other critters that depend on it. There may also be echinoderm wasting events due directly or indirectly to the elevated temperatures.

 

[Wingy]

Interesting to see what occurs on this coast. Last warming current we had juvenile whale sharks in Perth waters and G Whites in Ningaloo......go figure?????

 

[klausi]

Interesting to see what occurs on this coast. Last warming current we had juvenile whale sharks in Perth waters and G Whites in Ningaloo......go figure?????

Very interesting ... any speculation what the great whites were feeding on in Ningaloo? Did their regular food sources further south dry up, or did new food sources arise in the tropics?

 

[Wingy]

Sorry Klaus I cant say as I have only seen the footage of it taken by one of the boat skippers up there..will see if I can get the footage.

 

[Goodtime Adventures]

We're also seeing El Nino effects in Thailand, although unfortunately not in a positive way. Water temps have risen considerably so we're starting to see a fair amount of coral bleaching - especially in the shallows, where extremely low tides mean some corals are exposed for part of the day. If its anything like 4 years ago, there's about to be a lot of white on our dive sites

On the up side, our corals do seem very resilient in the Gulf, with a 90% recovery rate since the last bleaching event.

 

[klausi]

Interesting! Which coral species are those recovering? How deep do you see the bleaching?

 

[Goodtime Adventures]

Right now the bleaching is mainly confined to the shallows, but shallow OW dive sites are slowly becoming affected too. Typically though, damage in deeper areas is (for now!) mainly restricted to the tops of formations that face the surface directly.

I'm no marine biologist, but soft corals seem among the most resilient. Mushroom corals and branching corals (such as staghorn) seem to struggle the most - and it is mostly these that failed to recover after the last bleaching event 4 years ago. The corals that are on very shallow reefs here such as the Pavona and Pectina are very white right now, but thats mainly down to such super low tides that they risk exposure to much more direct sunlight. The bigger boulder type formations seem to recover OK, although any of them that has weakness (eg being overgrown/overshadowed by other organisms, or with areas of decay/parasites on them prior to bleaching) tend to struggle too. The boring clams that reside on them are very bleached at the moment though.