Warmer waters are bleaching reefs and threatening their survival Kyodo News via Getty
AROUND the world, coral reefs are dying as warming waters cause the polyps that build them and their live-in algal partners to part company. In some cases, once things cool down, reconciliation occurs, the partnership reforms and things become nearly normal. In others, the separation is permanent and, deprived of its algae, which provide energy and skeleton-building calcium carbonate, the coral dies.
