Coral reefs off the coast of Palm Beach, Florida, are losing ground to the seaweed Caulerpa verticillata. But Florida today is a human-dominated ecosystem. Human beings are actually controlling the level of the water table in south Florida. We've actually decreased the salinity in the Florida Bay by about 50 percent, and nutrient pollution has caused a huge dead zone in the bay and contaminated the waters throughout the Florida Keys Marine Sanctuary. Nitrogen and phosphorus are naturally occurring nutrients that are essential to life on Earth.
Reefs thrive in low-nutrient situations.
High levels of nutrients fertilize algae which in turn use up available oxygen and destroy or drive away other marine life. People don't seem to realize that what you do upstream affects what happens downstream, and the more phosphorus you remove, the more nitrogen is left and that affects the biogeochemistry of the coastal waters. The Everglades are a small part of a linked ecosystem. It will be expensive but it can be done. The clock started ticking about 10 years ago.