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Corals

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the simple animals which informed Charles Darwin's first book and form the reefs now threatened by climate change.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the simple animals which informed Charles Darwin's first book, The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs, published in 1842. From corals, Darwin concluded that the Earth changed very slowly and was not fashioned by God. Now coral reefs, which some liken to undersea rainforests, are threatened by human activity, including fishing, pollution and climate change.

With

Steve Jones
Senior Research Fellow in Genetics at University College London

Nicola Foster
Lecturer in Marine Biology at the University of Plymouth

And

Gareth Williams
Associate Professor in Marine Biology at Bangor University School of Ocean Sciences

Producer Simon Tilllotson.

Available now

52 minutes

Last on

Thu 28 Oct 2021 21:30

LINKS AND FURTHER READING

CONTRIBUTORS








READING LIST

Jeremy B. C. Jackson, Karen E. Alexander and Enric Sala (eds.), Shifting Baselines: The PastΒ and the Future of Ocean Fisheries (Springer, 2011)

Steve Jones, Coral: A Pessimist in Paradise (Abacus, 2008)

Callum Roberts, Reef Life: An Underwater Memoir (Profile Books, 2019)

Forest Rohwer with Merry Youle, Coral Reefs in the Microbial Seas (Plaid Press, 2010)

Peter Sale, Coral Reefs: Majestic Realms under the Sea (Yale University Press, 2021)

Charles Sheppard, Coral Reefs: A Natural History (Princeton University Press, 2021)

Mark Spalding, World Atlas of Coral Reefs (University of California Press, 2001)


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Broadcasts

  • Thu 28 Oct 2021 09:00
  • Thu 28 Oct 2021 21:30

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