Latest news with #Elkhorn
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Crossbreeding corals from Honduras could help protect Florida's coast
Miami — Marine scientists in Miami are hoping to restore Florida's coral reef by taking coral from Honduras and crossbreeding it. Warming ocean waters have had a devastating impact on the coral reefs of the Sunshine State. Efforts are underway to save the third-largest barrier reef system in the world, including the use of lab-grown corals and the removal of healthy corals, but scientists are now trying a method that they say has never been done before. "It's the first time ever in the world that an international cross of corals from different countries have been permitted for outplanting on wild reefs," Dr. Andrew Baker, a marine biologist at the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine Science, told CBS News on a boat ride near Miami. There are dozens of stony coral species along Florida's 350 miles of reefs, from the Florida Keys up to the St. Lucie Inlet. Two of them are listed as threatened under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, according to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, one of which is the Elkhorn coral. The Elkhorn species helps form the skeleton of a healthy reef, but according to Baker, more than 95% of the Elkhorn coral off Florida has been wiped out by a combination of factors, including rising temperatures fueled by climate change, increased coastal development and disease outbreaks "Over the last 50 years or so, we've lost more of these Elkhorn corals, culminating in 2023 when we had this really warm summer," Baker said. "And in order for that population to recover, it was determined that we need more diversity from outside the Florida population." So, scientists and conservationists started looking off the Caribbean coast in Honduras, specifically Tela Bay, where Elkhorn coral live in "the kind of conditions where corals have to be really tough to survive," Baker said. To crossbreed the Elkhorns, scientists with Tela Marine, a Honduras-based aquarium and marine research center, carefully plucked coral from the reef in Honduras. Permits were then needed to transport the coral fragments into the U.S. Once they arrived in Florida, scientists with the University of Miami and the Florida Aquarium in Tampa worked to create the "Flonduran" Elkhorn, as it was nicknamed by Baker. Earlier this month, the crossbred species were planted for the first time in Florida, underneath protective umbrellas to deter predators. "And if these corals can live through the next marine heat wave, then that is critical for our coastal protection on the coast of Florida," said Keri O'Neil, the director of coral conservation at the Florida Aquarium. With robust and healthy corals, South Florida's coastal communities are better protected from flooding because the reefs help break up hurricane-fueled waves. The planting of the first Flondurans is just the start of what's needed to rebuild. "We need to now scale this up and be out planting hundreds of thousands of baby corals all throughout the reef," Baker said. "And there are ways to do that, but we've got to gear up and get going." Trump pushes senators to make $9.4 trillion in spending cuts L.A. Mayor Karen Bass says National Guard deployment in city was "a misuse" of soldiers Mike Johnson breaks from Trump, calls on DOJ to release Epstein files
Yahoo
10-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Nebraska education commissioner announces 2026 bid for NU Board of Regents
Nebraska Education Commissioner Brian Maher is the second announced 2026 candidate for the District 1 seat on the University of Nebraska Board of Regents held by Regent Tim Clare of Lincoln, who says he will not seek a fourth term on the board. (Candidate photo courtesy of Maher campaign | University of Nebraska-Lincoln campus photo by Aaron Sanderford/Nebraska Examiner) LINCOLN — Nebraska's state education commissioner officially jumped Thursday into the 2026 race for a vacant seat on the University of Nebraska Board of Regents. Commissioner Brian Maher of Lincoln, 63, a lifelong educator who has served as state commissioner since July 2023, said his 'vision' for NU is 'a report card for the future' focused on achievement, alignment and a pathway for students to enter and succeed in NU, affordability in tuition and taxpayer dollars and enhancing NU's appeal for in-state and out-of-state students. Maher also said he would prioritize helping NU gain reinstatement into the prestigious American Association of Universities, a similar goal of Regent Tim Clare of Lincoln, whom Maher is seeking to succeed. NU had been a member of the AAU for more than 100 years until it was voted out in 2011 for not meeting certain membership criteria. 'I'm running for the Board of Regents to ensure the next generation of Nebraskans has access to an affordable, high-quality education — and the opportunity to thrive here in our great state,' Maher said in a statement. 'The University of Nebraska has given so much to my family. It's time for us to give back.' The District 1 seat Maher is running for is held by Regent Tim Clare of Lincoln, who told the Lincoln Journal Star in April that he would not seek a fourth six-year term next year. The district includes the northern half of Lincoln, as well as the surrounding communities of Emerald, Malcolm, Agnew, Raymond and Davey. Maher is a first-generation college graduate who was born and raised in Hooper as the youngest of seven children. Maher and his wife Peg raised three children who were all educated at NU and competed in varsity athletics. Across a 40-year career in education, Maher's tenure includes being a teacher at Elkhorn and Clarks Public Schools; a school administrator at Waverly, Elkhorn and Johnson-Brock Public Schools; superintendent of Kearney and Centennial Public Schools in Nebraska; as well as at the Sioux Falls School District in South Dakota and as CEO of the South Dakota Board of Regents (the Nebraska equivalent of NU president). Maher earned a doctorate in educational administration from NU. In 2015, he was awarded the 'Nebraska Superintendent of the Year,' his final year in Kearney. Maher enters the race with the endorsements of all eight members of the officially nonpartisan State Board of Education that selects an education commissioner. The members are four Republicans and four Democrats. The state board last month unanimously voted to extend Maher's contract one more year, to July 2027. He was appointed in March 2023 on a 5-3 vote at a time when the board also was split 4-4, with one Republican joining Democrats. The Republican members of the state board endorsing Maher are Elizabeth Tegtmeier of North Platte (chair), Kirk Penner of Aurora, Sherry Jones of Grand Island and Lisa Schonhoff of Bennington. The Democratic board endorsing him are Deb Neary of Omaha (vice chair), Kristin Christensen of Lincoln, Maggie Douglas of Bellevue and Liz Renner of Omaha. Former Lincoln Public Schools Superintendent Steve Joel also endorsed Maher. Maher's immediate predecessor, former Education Commissioner Matt Blomstedt now works for NU as its associate vice president for government relations. Campaign spokesperson Derek Oden said Maher 'fully intends to continue faithfully serving' as commissioner through the campaign. If elected, Maher does intend to step down 'to fully commit himself' to the NU Board of Regents. That means the State Board of Education could be searching for a new ed commissioner in 2027, and the 2026 election could decide the partisan split of the board and the ease with which a new commissioner is selected. In 2026, the seats of three Republicans (Jones, Penner and Tegtmeier) and one Democrat (Neary) are up for election. Maher joins the officially nonpartisan race for regent with Lincoln entrepreneur Brent Comstock, 29, who announced his candidacy in early June. Clare is a registered Republican, and so is Maher. Comstock is a registered nonpartisan. The NU board is currently 6-2 majority Republican. Clare ran unopposed in 2014 and 2020 and won in 2008 with 58% of the vote. New district boundaries took effect in 2021 and match those of State Board of Education District 1, which elected newcomer Christensen with 58% of the vote in a highly watched election in November. She succeeded former State Board of Education member Patsy Koch Johns, a Democrat first elected in 2016. The top two vote-getters in the May 2026 NU regents race will advance to the November 2026 election. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Japan Today
10-07-2025
- Science
- Japan Today
Scientists transplant crossbred corals to help save Miami's reefs from climate change
This image shows divers planting a crossbred coral species from Honduras on July 1, off the coast of Miami to help Florida's coral reefs become more resilient to climate change. By CODY JACKSON and FREIDA FRISARO A team of scientists from the University of Miami, the Florida Aquarium and Tela Marine in Honduras is working together to transplant crossbred coral fragments onto a reef off Miami's coastline that was devastated by coral bleaching two years ago. They're looking for ways to help reefs survive increased ocean temperatures caused by global warming and climate change. 'It's the end of a very long process," Andrew Baker, professor of marine biology and ecology at the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School and director of the Coral Reef Futures Lab, said as divers planted the corals off Miami. The plan of introducing corals from the Caribbean evolved over the past few years. "We had this idea that we really needed to try to help Florida's coral reef by introducing more diversity from around the Caribbean, recognizing that some of the biggest threats to corals, like climate change, are really global phenomena and if you try to have Florida's reefs save themselves on their own, we could give them some outside help,' Baker said. Coral breeding has also been done in Hawaii, where in 2021, scientists were working to speed up the coral's evolutionary clock to breed 'super corals' that can better withstand the impacts of global warming. Baker's group teamed with the Florida Aquarium and Tela Marine, bringing in fragments of corals from a warm reef off of Tela, Honduras, which spawned in tanks at the aquarium. 'We were able to cross the spawn from those corals, the sperm and the eggs, to produce babies. One parent from Florida, one parent from Honduras,' Baker said. They chose the reef off of Tela because the water is about 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than the water off the coast of Florida. 'And yet the corals in those environments, and especially the Elkhorn corals, are really thriving,' Baker said. He noted that there are extensive beds that are hundreds of meters long, full of flourishing Elkhorn. 'And yet they survive there despite really warm conditions and also quite nutrient-polluted waters,' Baker said. The conditions are similar to those Florida will face over the next century, Baker said. It's also the first time international crossbreeding of corals has been permitted for planting onto wild reefs. 'So we're really excited to see how these do,' he said. The hope is the corals will be more 'thermally tolerant,' which Baker and the team will be testing throughout the summer. Elkhorn corals are some of Florida's most iconic species and are valuable because they form the crest of the reef, Baker said. 'And the reef is what protects shorelines from storms and flooding. So if you have healthy Elkhorn coral populations, you have a great reef that is acting almost like a speed bump over which waves and storms pass and dissipate their energy before they hit the coast,' he said. Elkhorn corals are in serious decline, thanks in part to the coral bleaching in 2023 and warming sea temperatures, Baker said. While coral get their bright colors from the colorful algae that live inside them, prolonged warmth causes the algae to release toxic compounds. The coral ejects them, and a stark white skeleton — referred to as coral bleaching — is left behind, and the weakened coral is at risk of dying. 'We've lost maybe more than 95% of the Elkhorn corals that were on Florida's reefs at that point,' Baker said. Some of the corals spawned in the Florida Aquarium's laboratory arrived there in 2020, said Keri O'Neil, director and senior scientist with the aquarium's Coral Conservation Program. She said more fragments from Honduras and Florida will continue to live at the center. 'We hope that every year in the future we can make more and more crosses and continue to figure out which parents produce the best offspring,' O'Neil said. The tiny Elkhorn coral fragments were placed onto small concrete bases along the reef on Tuesday. 'We've arranged them in a certain way that we can compare the performance of each of corals,' Baker said. The team will study how the corals that have a Honduran parent compare to the ones that are entirely from Florida. "But it's really the future that we're looking to and in particular, a warming future and a warming summer, how these corals do and do they have more thermal tolerance than the native Florida population, because that's really what the goal of the whole project is,'' he said. Baker said it's the most exciting project he's worked on during his 20-year stint at the University of Miami. If the corals thrive, it could provide a blueprint for working across the Caribbean to share corals. 'This is a project about international collaboration, about the fact that our environment really doesn't have closed borders, that we can work together to make things better in the world,' said Juli Berwald, co-founder of Tela Cora. 'And it shows that when we talk to each other, when we work together, we can really do something that might be life-changing, not just for us but for the corals and the reefs and all the animals that rely on the reefs.' © Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Boston Globe
04-07-2025
- Science
- Boston Globe
Scientists transplant crossbred corals to help save Miami's reefs from climate change
The plan of introducing corals from the Caribbean evolved over the past few years. 'We had this idea that we really needed to try to help Florida's coral reef by introducing more diversity from around the Caribbean, recognizing that some of the biggest threats to corals, like climate change, are really global phenomena and if you try to have Florida's reefs save themselves on their own, we could give them some outside help,' Baker said. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Coral breeding has also been done in Hawaii, where, in 2021, scientists were working to speed up the coral's evolutionary clock to breed 'super corals' that can better withstand the impacts of global warming. Advertisement Baker's group teamed with the Florida Aquarium and Tela Marine, bringing in fragments of corals from a warm reef off of Tela, Honduras, which spawned in tanks at the aquarium. 'We were able to cross the spawn from those corals, the sperm and the eggs, to produce babies. One parent from Florida, one parent from Honduras,' Baker said. Advertisement They chose the reef off of Tela because the water is about 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the water off the coast of Florida. 'And yet the corals in those environments, and especially the Elkhorn corals, are really thriving,' Baker said. He noted that there are extensive beds that are hundreds of meters long, full of flourishing Elkhorn. 'They survive there despite really warm conditions and also quite nutrient-polluted waters,' Baker said. The conditions are similar to those Florida will face over the next century, Baker said. It's also the first time international crossbreeding of corals has been permitted for planting onto wild reefs. 'So we're really excited to see how these do,' he said. The hope is the corals will be more 'thermally tolerant,' which Baker and the team will be testing throughout the summer. Elkhorn corals are some of Florida's most iconic species and are valuable because they form the crest of the reef, Baker said. 'And the reef is what protects shorelines from storms and flooding. So if you have healthy Elkhorn coral populations, you have a great reef that is acting almost like a speed bump over which waves and storms pass and dissipate their energy before they hit the coast,' he said. Elkhorn corals are in serious decline, thanks in part to the coral bleaching in 2023 and warming sea temperatures, Baker said. While coral get their bright colors from the colorful algae that live inside them, prolonged warmth causes the algae to release toxic compounds. The coral ejects them, and a stark white skeleton — referred to as coral bleaching — is left behind, and the weakened coral is at risk of dying. Advertisement 'We've lost maybe more than 95 percent of the Elkhorn corals that were on Florida's reefs at that point,' Baker said. Some of the corals spawned in the Florida Aquarium's laboratory arrived there in 2020, said Keri O'Neil, director and senior scientist with the aquarium's Coral Conservation Program. She said more fragments from Honduras and Florida will continue to live at the center. 'We hope that every year in the future we can make more and more crosses and continue to figure out which parents produce the best offspring,' O'Neil said. The tiny Elkhorn coral fragments were placed onto small concrete bases along the reef on Tuesday. 'We've arranged them in a certain way that we can compare the performance of each of corals,' Baker said. The team will study how the corals that have a Honduran parent compare to the ones that are entirely from Florida. 'But it's really the future that we're looking to and in particular, a warming future and a warming summer, how these corals do and do they have more thermal tolerance than the native Florida population, because that's really what the goal of the whole project is,' he said. Baker said it's the most exciting project he's worked on during his 20-year stint at the University of Miami. If the corals thrive, it could provide a blueprint for working across the Caribbean to share corals. 'This is a project about international collaboration, about the fact that our environment really doesn't have closed borders, that we can work together to make things better in the world,' said Juli Berwald, co-founder of Tela Coral. 'And it shows that when we talk to each other, when we work together, we can really do something that might be life-changing, not just for us but for the corals and the reefs and all the animals that rely on the reefs.' Advertisement
Nahar Net
04-07-2025
- Science
- Nahar Net
Scientists transplant crossbred corals to help save Miami's reefs from climate change
by Naharnet Newsdesk 04 July 2025, 15:20 A team of scientists from the University of Miami, the Florida Aquarium and Tela Coral in Honduras is working together to transplant crossbred coral fragments onto a reef off Miami's coastline that was devastated by coral bleaching two years ago. They're looking for ways to help reefs survive increased ocean temperatures caused by global warming and climate change. "It's the end of a very long process," Andrew Baker, professor of marine biology and ecology at the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School and director of the Coral Reef Futures Lab, said Tuesday as divers planted the corals off Miami. The plan of introducing corals from the Caribbean evolved over the past few years. "We had this idea that we really needed to try to help Florida's coral reef by introducing more diversity from around the Caribbean, recognizing that some of the biggest threats to corals, like climate change, are really global phenomena and if you try to have Florida's reefs save themselves on their own, we could give them some outside help," Baker said. Coral breeding has also been done in Hawaii, where in 2021, scientists were working to speed up the coral's evolutionary clock to breed "super corals" that can better withstand the impacts of global warming. Why crossbreed with corals from Honduras? Baker's group teamed with the Florida Aquarium and Tela Coral, bringing in fragments of corals from a warm reef off of Tela, Honduras, which spawned in tanks at the aquarium. "We were able to cross the spawn from those corals, the sperm and the eggs, to produce babies. One parent from Florida, one parent from Honduras," Baker said. They chose the reef off of Tela because the water is about 2 degrees Celsius (35.6 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than the water off the coast of Florida. "And yet the corals in those environments, and especially the Elkhorn corals, are really thriving," Baker said. He noted that there are extensive beds that are hundreds of meters long, full of flourishing Elkhorn. "And yet they survive there despite really warm conditions and also quite nutrient-polluted waters," Baker said. The conditions are similar to those Florida will face over the next century, Baker said. It's also the first time international crossbreeding of corals has been permitted for planting onto wild reefs. "So we're really excited to see how these do," he said. The hope is the corals will be more "thermally tolerant," which Baker and the team will be testing throughout the summer. What are Elkhorn corals? Elkhorn corals are some of Florida's most iconic species and are valuable because they form the crest of the reef, Baker said. "And the reef is what protects shorelines from storms and flooding. So if you have healthy Elkhorn coral populations, you have a great reef that is acting almost like a speed bump over which waves and storms pass and dissipate their energy before they hit the coast," he said. Elkhorn corals are in serious decline, thanks in part to the coral bleaching in 2023 and warming sea temperatures, Baker said. While coral get their bright colors from the colorful algae that live inside them, prolonged warmth causes the algae to release toxic compounds. The coral ejects them, and a stark white skeleton — referred to as coral bleaching — is left behind, and the weakened coral is at risk of dying. "We've lost maybe more than 95% of the Elkhorn corals that were on Florida's reefs at that point," Baker said. Some of the corals spawned in the Florida Aquarium's laboratory arrived there in 2020, said Keri O'Neil, director and senior scientist with the aquarium's Coral Conservation Program. She said more fragments from Honduras and Florida will continue to live at the center. "We hope that every year in the future we can make more and more crosses and continue to figure out which parents produce the best offspring," O'Neil said. How do they plant the corals on the reef? The tiny Elkhorn coral fragments were placed onto small concrete bases along the reef on Tuesday. "We've arranged them in a certain way that we can compare the performance of each of corals," Baker said. The team will study how the corals that have a Honduran parent compare to the ones that are entirely from Florida. "But it's really the future that we're looking to and in particular, a warming future and a warming summer, how these corals do and do they have more thermal tolerance than the native Florida population, because that's really what the goal of the whole project is,'' he said. Baker said it's the most exciting project he's worked on during his 20-year stint at the University of Miami. Hope for the future If the corals thrive, it could provide a blueprint for working across the Caribbean to share corals. "This is a project about international collaboration, about the fact that our environment really doesn't have closed borders, that we can work together to make things better in the world," said Juli Berwald, co-founder of Tela Cora. "And it shows that when we talk to each other, when we work together, we can really do something that might be life-changing, not just for us but for the corals and the reefs and all the animals that rely on the reefs."
