Re: Coral Reefs News and Discussions
Posted: Sat Aug 12, 2023 11:17 pm
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A group of scientists have developed a new way to grow coral reefs in the lab. The method could be used to restore damaged reefs or create new reefs in areas where they have never existed befor
Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1036591(Eurekalert) Planting new coral in degraded reefs can lead to rapid recovery – with restored reefs growing as fast as healthy reefs after just four years, new research shows.
Reefs worldwide are severely threatened by local and global pressures. In Indonesia, where the study was carried out, destructive blast fishing destroyed large reef areas 30-40 years ago – with no signs of recovery until now.
The Mars Coral Reef Restoration Programme attempts to restore degraded reefs by transplanting coral fragments onto a network of interconnected “Reef Stars” (sand-coated steel frames).
Read more here: https://www.vox.com/down-to-earth/2409 ... ier-reef(Vox) Once a year, after dark, a bit of magic happens in the ocean.
In tropical waters worldwide, large chunks of coral — those colorful rocklike structures in shallow, coastal waters, each a colony of living animals — start puffing out hundreds of little pearl-sized balls. Some are pink. Others are red, orange, or yellow. For a few minutes, the ocean is a snow globe, and then the balls float away.
This phenomenon, known as spawning, is how many corals reproduce. Each ball is a bundle of eggs and sperm from an individual coral colony. Different colonies of the same species somehow know how to spawn on the same day and same time, so their eggs and sperm can meet and form baby corals.
Spawning is incredibly hard to observe. Again, it happens only once a year, and often only for a few minutes at night. Plus, stressed or damaged corals are less likely to spawn. And across large swaths of ocean, extreme heat — linked to climate change — has been stressing these animals out.
But earlier this month, a team of marine biologists got lucky: They witnessed a massive spawning event off the coast of Cambodia, in the Gulf of Thailand. Not long after sunset, several different kinds of coral filled the water with pearls.