{"id":5636,"date":"2026-09-01T12:30:27","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T07:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=5636"},"modified":"2026-09-01T15:28:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T09:58:14","slug":"coral-bleaching","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/coral-bleaching\/","title":{"rendered":"Coral Bleaching"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Coral Bleaching Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Recently, the seventh Status of Coral Reefs of the World report by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network (GCRMN) said that Coral bleaching events are becoming more frequent and recovery periods have shortened dramatically.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Coral Bleaching<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It occurs when <\/span><b><a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/corals\/\" target=\"_blank\">corals<\/a> experience stress<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in their environment due to changes in <\/span><b>temperature, pollution or high levels of ocean acidity.<\/b><\/li>\n<li><b>Process of Coral Bleaching<\/b>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Under stressed conditions, the <\/span><b>zooxanthellae or food-producing algae<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> living inside coral polyps <\/span><b>start producing reactive oxygen species,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> which are not beneficial to the corals.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So, the corals <\/span><b>expel the colour-giving zooxanthellae from their polyps,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> which expose their pale white exoskeleton, giving the corals a bleached appearance.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This also <\/span><b>ends the symbiotic relationship<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that helps the corals to survive and grow.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>What Causes Coral Bleaching?<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Change in Ocean Temperature:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Increased Ocean temperature caused by climate change is the leading cause of coral bleaching.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Runoff and Pollution:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Storm generated precipitation can rapidly dilute ocean water and runoff can carry pollutants, which can bleach near shore corals.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Overexposure to sunlight:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> When temperatures are high, high solar irradiance contributes to bleaching in shallow water corals.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Extremely low tides:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Exposure to the air during extremely low tides can cause bleaching in shallow corals.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><b>What are Corals?<\/b><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Corals are <\/span><b>marine invertebrates<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> or animals not possessing a spine.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Each coral is called a polyp and thousands of such polyps live together to form a colony, which grows when polyps multiply to make copies of themselves.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Corals share <\/span><b>a symbiotic relationship<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> with <\/span><b>single-celled algae called zooxanthellae.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The algae provide the coral with food and nutrients, which they make through photosynthesis, using the sun\u2019s light.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In turn, the corals give the algae a home and key nutrients. The zooxanthellae also give corals their bright colour.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source:<\/b> <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.downtoearth.org.in\/wildlife-biodiversity\/coral-bleaching-events-becoming-more-frequent-leaving-reefs-little-time-to-recover\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">DTE<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Coral Bleaching happens when corals experience stress in their environment due to changes in temperature, pollution or high levels of ocean acidity. Read more about Coral Bleaching, Meaning, Causes, Process, Examples, Latest News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":122113,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[9923,21,22,23],"class_list":["post-5636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","tag-coral-bleaching","tag-prelims-pointers","tag-upsc-current-affairs","tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","no-featured-image-padding"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5636"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5636\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":122185,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5636\/revisions\/122185"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}