Can Resilient βSuper Coralsβ Save Bleached And Boiled Coral Reefs?
ππ«π«π₯πππ’ππ§ππ’π¬π, scientist & journalist
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5 min read
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Sep 28
Resilient βsuper coralsβ have recently been seen as potential saviors in the face of climate change and its destructive effects on coral reefs
Β© by GrrlScientist for Forbes | LinkTr.ee
Porites lutea off RΓ©union. (Credit: Philippe Bourjon / CC BY-SA 3.0)
Coral reefs are critically important habitats for countless animals as well as for people. Globally, one out of every four marine fishes spends at least some part of its life on a coral reef. Billions of people worldwide depend upon coral reefs for food, storm protection and for jobs. The imperilled coral reefs in the Florida Keys that you hear about daily in the news, for example, account for an infusion of some $2.4 million annually into the local economy and provide approximately half of the local jobs.
This year, many of the worldβs coral reefs are either dying or are already dead because of the influx of seawater that has been superheated by climate change. This overheated water triggers corals to become βbleached.β Coral bleaching results when corals expel their colorful endosymbiotic algae, leaving the still living, but white, coral skeleton behind (more here). If the water cools quickly enough, the corals can survive. If not, they starve. But tragically, the seawater along the coast of Florida is now so hot that corals are quickly killed β without starving.
Scientists are working diligently to save the worldβs coral reefs, or at least to minimize the damage they suffer from runaway climate change. As part of this work, researchers identified 34 species of resilient corals in two mangrove lagoons on Woody Isle and Howick Island that are part of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park in Far North Queensland, Australia.
Often referred to as βsuper corals,β these corals can survive and even thrive in extreme environments such as mangrove lagoons, where they are regularly exposed to extreme low pH, low oxygen content and highly variable temperature conditions. These corals may provide scientists with novel information about how corals can survive stressors such as climate change and pollution.
For these reasons, super corals are viewed as potential sources of stress-tolerant corals for use in a variety of conservation strategies such as coral propagation and assisted evolution. Assisted evolution refersβ¦
