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Mongabay
Mongabay
A new study shows that two-fifths of coral reefs globally are seriously threatened by sediment runoff — the transportation of accumulated material from land to sea, often with harmful pollutants tagging along. But it also offers a potential solution: reforestation. “Sediment excess can attenuate light and reduce the rates of algal photosynthesis, which means algae cannot provide essential nutrients to the corals and this translates in negative impacts on coral growth,” said Andrés Felipe Suárez-Castro, co-author of the study published in Global Change Biology and ecologist at the University of…