<p>Nearly a third of Taiwan's corals are dying from bleaching caused by warming oceans in an alarming phenomenon that poses a severe threat to the island's delicate underwater ecosystem, conservationists warned Wednesday.</p>.<p>An investigation conducted last year in 62 locations around the island by the Taiwan Coral Bleaching Observation Network (TCBON) showed bleaching had reached its worst recorded levels.</p>.<p>Half of Taiwan's reefs have been hit by bleaching with 31 percent so badly impacted that they are dying and probably beyond saving.</p>.<p>"It's like the corals are being cooked," said Kuo Chao-yang, a postdoctoral scholar at the Biodiversity Research Center at Taiwan's leading research institute, Academia Sinica.</p>.<p>Coral reefs cover less than one percent of the ocean floor but support a quarter of all marine species, providing them with food and shelter.</p>.<p>Warming waters due to climate change cause corals to expel the food-producing algae living in their tissues, breaking down their symbiotic relationship and leading to loss of colour and life in a process known as bleaching.</p>.<p>The lack of typhoons last summer -- which could have stirred up cooler waters from the deep -- aggravated the bleaching, Kuo, a member of TCBON, told AFP.</p>.<p>Much of the ocean they surveyed last summer was above 30 degrees Celsius for three months. The worst area was in Little Liuqiu, a coral island off the southwest coast in the Taiwan Strait where 55 percent of corals have now been seriously bleached.</p>.<p>Another alarming sign was bleaching in Yehliu, off the colder northeast coast, for the first time since 1998.</p>.<p>"Coral reefs are the rainforest in the ocean. A coral reef without corals is just like a forest without trees and the reef-associated creatures will have to leave because there is no shelter or food," Kuo said.</p>.<p>"If corals are dead, the coral reef ecosystem will start to collapse as its root is cut."</p>.<p>Mingo Lee, a diver who helps document coral health in Taiwan, described the level of bleaching as like "snow in the ocean".</p>.<p>"It was white everywhere... I have never seen anything like that in my 20 years as a diver," he told reporters.</p>
<p>Nearly a third of Taiwan's corals are dying from bleaching caused by warming oceans in an alarming phenomenon that poses a severe threat to the island's delicate underwater ecosystem, conservationists warned Wednesday.</p>.<p>An investigation conducted last year in 62 locations around the island by the Taiwan Coral Bleaching Observation Network (TCBON) showed bleaching had reached its worst recorded levels.</p>.<p>Half of Taiwan's reefs have been hit by bleaching with 31 percent so badly impacted that they are dying and probably beyond saving.</p>.<p>"It's like the corals are being cooked," said Kuo Chao-yang, a postdoctoral scholar at the Biodiversity Research Center at Taiwan's leading research institute, Academia Sinica.</p>.<p>Coral reefs cover less than one percent of the ocean floor but support a quarter of all marine species, providing them with food and shelter.</p>.<p>Warming waters due to climate change cause corals to expel the food-producing algae living in their tissues, breaking down their symbiotic relationship and leading to loss of colour and life in a process known as bleaching.</p>.<p>The lack of typhoons last summer -- which could have stirred up cooler waters from the deep -- aggravated the bleaching, Kuo, a member of TCBON, told AFP.</p>.<p>Much of the ocean they surveyed last summer was above 30 degrees Celsius for three months. The worst area was in Little Liuqiu, a coral island off the southwest coast in the Taiwan Strait where 55 percent of corals have now been seriously bleached.</p>.<p>Another alarming sign was bleaching in Yehliu, off the colder northeast coast, for the first time since 1998.</p>.<p>"Coral reefs are the rainforest in the ocean. A coral reef without corals is just like a forest without trees and the reef-associated creatures will have to leave because there is no shelter or food," Kuo said.</p>.<p>"If corals are dead, the coral reef ecosystem will start to collapse as its root is cut."</p>.<p>Mingo Lee, a diver who helps document coral health in Taiwan, described the level of bleaching as like "snow in the ocean".</p>.<p>"It was white everywhere... I have never seen anything like that in my 20 years as a diver," he told reporters.</p>