Matchmaking corals from different colonies could reduce bleaching events
Breeding together corals that have naturally high heat tolerance and planting them on coral reefs could increase the reefs’ resilience to climate change and reduce the impact of bleaching events, according to Dr James Guest, a coral reef ecologist from Newcastle University, UK. He is studying this ‘assisted evolution’ approach to coral conservation and examining the risks associated with it.
Coral reefs are one of the most diverse ecosystems on Earth, but rising ocean temperatures are causing corals to bleach and then die at massive scales. Dr Guest belongs to an international team conducting work at Palau International Coral Reef Center in the west Pacific to speed up coral’s adaptation to warmer waters by interbreeding naturally heat-tolerant corals to produce offspring better equipped to survive the new ocean conditions. Once outplanted on to reefs, these offspring can increase the heat tolerance of the reef as a whole.