Major Research Blog Project: Coral Disease Research

     Hello everyone!

              Sorry I have not posted in a while! I have been REALLY busy with numerous assignments, projects, and exams from all of my classes. One of the biggest assignments is a research paper for my Composition II (English) class. The assignment started out as an outline that we would eventually have to create that basically serves as the backbone for the actual paper. I have been neglecting my blog for a while, and I totally forgot about my research paper, so I thought I would let you know more about it!

As I began my research for my topic, which ended up being coral diseases, I was mainly searching for the most reliable information sources of official organizations, primarily government or educational websites. Last semester, I had a group project that we researched and presented information about the NOAA, or the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration. The NOAA is a government organization (within Department of Commerce) that studies the conditions of the ocean, weather, and atmosphere to help improve the natural relationship between modern society and our planet. In the end, I located two NOAA-based sources for my research about coral diseases (I have provided all my sources at the end of this blog if you are curious). It is best to search for the most credible resources, and even though my remaining sources are very knowledgeable about coral diseases, some would probably find them not as credible because they are not as well-known as NOAA. I cannot really distinguish the differences in the authors/publishers of each information source because in reality, there are no actual differences in online delivery of information. Some of the sources specifically focused on coral disease descriptions while others discussed coral diseases, causes & effects, preservation strategies, etc. Dispensing information via the Internet can only divided into two sets: little or lots of information dispensed and whether it is dispensed in an entertaining way or in a serious manner. The sources I found to be the most helpful included ample information in a way that was serious, but at the same time not too verbose (which would confuse and bore the reader). All in all, all writers and researchers of my sources have one sole purpose: educating the public about the causes and effects of coral reefs and how we can help them. There is not too much to go into an in-depth analysis about, but you get the gist.

I have a fairly familiar background with coral diseases because during the summer of 2013, I spent three weeks in the US & UK Virgin Islands on a science camp that involved scuba diving, marine biology, coastal ecology, etc. We spent a decent amount of time studying coral disease and coverage during the trip, whether through lectures or hands-on experience. In each article that gives a sufficient summarization of coral diseases, the terms and information came easier to me than it would to others. Because there are so many kinds, I kept my research succinct, including only four diseases: Black Band Disease, White Syndrome (comes in multiple forms), Brown Band Disease, and Black Necrosing Syndrome. Such as with most human diseases, coral disease have very visually distinguishing differences. According to the names of each disease, you can imagine what corals that catch these diseases look like. Different corals are affected by different diseases as seen below:

Not only do my sources discuss the characteristics of coral diseases, but also the relative causes that induce coral disease. These factors can be divided into two categories: biotic (living) or abiotic (non-living). Biotic factors chiefly include algae, microorganisms, and parasites (basically any living thing that causes harm to other lifeforms). You might be wondering, "What are abiotic factors?" It is actually simpler than you think. Abiotic factors or stressors to coral reefs are basic chemical and commercial pollution from human-based sources on land or sea, overfishing, or any kind of deteriorating human use. Abiotic stressors also include environmental factors, such as, "changes in salinity, temperature, light" (The Nature Conservancy). Essentially, abiotic factors are factors that, in this case of coral reef disease and depletion, are comprised of anything that does not involve a living organism. Whether abiotic or biotic, these stressors are difficult to improve or at least regulate. There are many considerations on how society, as a whole, can help to at least diminish some of these dangers to coral reefs, but some are inevitable, regardless of what humans do. I would like to mention some of these, but they are fairly basic and listing them all would be a waste of time and space. If you are interested, check out the links below.

       

Collaborating all of this gathered information into an outline was extremely difficult. Due to multiple factors of distractions, my job, and working on other assignments, my outline took around five days to complete. The biggest difficulty was shortening my research so my outline would be terse yet informational. I like using a lot of information in my research, but I guess I will have to save that for the actual paper. Once I started, I got on a roll. I decided to actually save working on the introduction and conclusion paragraphs until the end because once all my information was set up in the outline's bullet points, I could efficiently and creatively concoct the paragraphs. Creating and formatting all the bullet points only took about two days to complete, but the introduction and conclusion paragraphs took four days to complete. It took so long because I was trying to be more creative with my word choice and combinations. In the middle of constructing the outline, I all of a sudden got very perplexed on its exact format. I eventually got it together and created my masterpiece.

Bibliographic Information
"Common Identified Coral Diseases." Common Identified Coral Diseases. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, n.d. Web. 28 Feb. 2015. <http://www.artificialreefs.org/Corals/diseasesfiles/Common%20Identified%20Coral%20Diseases.htm>.

"Coral Disease." Coral Disease. CRc Reef Research Center, n.d. Web. 27 Feb. 2015. <http://crcreef.jcu.edu.au/discover/coralreefs/Coraldisease.htm>.

"Coral Reef Module." Reef Resilience. The Nature Conservancy, n.d. Web. 27 Feb. 2015. <http://www.reefresilience.org/coral-reefs>.

"Corals." NOAA's National Ocean Service Education. National Ocean Service, n.d. Web. 27 Feb. 2015. <http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/tutorial_corals/welcome.html>.