This is bird note.

Today kicks off Coral Reef Awareness Week.

Coral reefs are hot spots of biodiversity, but they're threatened by warming ocean temperatures,

pollution, and overfishing. One thing to be aware of this week is how these underwater ecosystems are linked to birds in the sky above them.

Heat waves at sea can cause large amounts of coral to die off.

Water that's too warm causes corals to reject the beneficial algae that live within them and lose their color.

The result is called coral bleaching.

Although bleached corals don't die right away, they're at

higher risk. That's where birds come in.

Bleached corals need nutrients to recover and reproduce, and seabirds that nest on nearby land,

like these sooty turns, are a great source of nutrients.

Well, their poop is anyway.

The seabirds eat small fish, and their guano often lands in the waters above the coral reef.

Enriched with nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus,

coral reefs get a boost from the fertilized waters

and can recover faster from bleaching

compared to reefs without a thriving local bird population.

The natural world is full of surprising connections that show us the importance of every link in the ecosystem.

And birds are some of the most important connectors there are,

from neighborhood parks to coral reefs.

For bird note, I'm Ariana Remel.