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Published online 20 November 2000 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news001123-4
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African dust chokes Caribbean reefs
Global warming may be damaging Caribbean coral reefs by causing the Sahara desert to expand. .
Caribbean coral reefs are shrinking because of a doubling in the amount of dust carried in westbound winds across the Atlantic from the Sahara Desert each year, thanks to global warming, US scientists suggest.
The African dust brings with it a fungus, Aspergillus sydowii, that attacks coral reefs, and minerals, such as iron and silicates, that promote the growth of algae in the normally nutritionally poor waters of the Caribbean sea.
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