For decades, scientists have anxiously watched corals around the world turn ghostly white. The heat of the ocean can stress animals and cause them to turn white, often a sign of impending death. Coral reefs, vital underwater ecosystems that also protect coastlines from big waves, are disappearing over time as climate change warms the seas.
But now, in a study published Wednesday in Science Advances, Stanford researchers describe a new method for resurrecting bleached corals. The dying coral, after physically touching healthy coral in the laboratory, fully recovered within seven weeks.
“What was most exciting was seeing the remarkable potential for bleached corals to recover quickly,” said Danny Collins, a doctoral student. in Oceans at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability and lead author of the study, told SFGATE. “These bleached corals are often treated as a lost cause. »
In nature, individual corals of many different species multiply by producing clones. The study demonstrated that, in the laboratory, a bleached coral fragment and a healthy coral fragment from the same animal needed close contact for about a week for healing to occur.
“Genetically identical corals recognize each other when they come into contact,” study author and Stanford professor Steve Palumbi said in a recent statement. “Their tissues fuse if they come from the same clone. We see something similar in humans. Organ transplants are often successful if the donor is your identical twin.”
Still, scientists cautioned that until more research is conducted, it may not be possible to use this exact approach at the scale needed to restore entire reefs to the wild. This would require a healthy, genetically identical copy of each dying coral and continued contact.
“This new knowledge about how corals can recover naturally gives us hope for the future,” Fiorenza Micheli, another study author and co-director of the Stanford Center for Ocean Solutions, said in a statement. “They open the door to what is possible and could lead to the breakthrough we need to accelerate reef restoration.”
Gn Health
