Just about everything made today can or should be recycled. Recycling allows previously used materials to be processed and reused for something new and productive, while reducing waste at the same time. My great-grandfather owned a rag shop in Philadelphia during the early 1900’s. This was a primitive form of recycling that involved taking fabrics that would have previously been thrown away and breaking them down into usable rags for auto shops, homes, etc. Although my great-grandfather’s idea was a form of recycling, recycling as we know it today did not evolve until the past couple of decades. It took humans a long time to figure out how to recycle efficiently and we are still figuring out new ways to take waste and make it into something more productive. Maybe we should have taken cues from our coral reefs.
The Journal of Experimental Biology has recently been studying coral reefs in the Netherlands. The waters are very poor in nutrients and can be thought of as the underwater equivalent of a desert. The researchers were interested in how the reefs were able to not only survive, but strive. The answer: Recycling. It turns out that one of the sponges, Halisarca caerulea for you bio majors, was the key recycler. The sponge absorbs water, filled with organic carbon, which is harmful to the reef and turns it into a byproduct which is shed by the sponge. By shedding these old cells, the sponge stays about the same size and also provides food for the Plankton that live in the reef. This research allowed scientists to further understand the importance of sponges in coral reefs and they plan on using them in artificial reefs to help the overall ecosystem.
This just shows that our coral reefs are more than capable of surviving, just about anything. Whether it be rebuilding after a tsunami, or recycling in a desert-like underwater atmosphere, the reef will survive. The real danger occurs when you add the human element to the equation; only our destructive practices can eliminate the coral reefs, which also means that we must be the ones to save them.
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