Latest news with #coral
Washington Post
22-07-2025
- General
- Washington Post
From dying reefs to flooded graves, Vanuatu is leading a global climate case
PORT VILA, Vanuatu — When John Warmington first began diving the reefs outside his home in Vanuatu's Havannah Harbor a decade ago, the coral rose like a sunken forest — tall stands of staghorns branched into yellow antlers, plate corals layered like canopies, and clouds of darting fish wove through the labyrinth.
The Independent
08-07-2025
- Science
- The Independent
Lizard Island coral death reaches 92 per cent after 2024 bleaching event, study finds
Almost all of the surveyed coral at Lizard Island on the Great Barrier Reef died after last year's bleaching event, a new study found, revealing one of the highest coral mortality rates ever recorded anywhere in the world. The 2024 bleaching was part of a global marine heatwave that hit tropical reefs across the planet. Even though Lizard Island did not experience the most extreme temperatures, the coral death rate was still 'unprecedented', researchers noted. 'These results highlight the fragility of coral ecosystems facing increasing stress from climate change, and the possible devastation resulting from the 2024 global bleaching event,' study lead author Dr Vincent Raoult of Griffith University explained. The study team used drone surveys and in-water observations to monitor 20 reef sections at the island's northern and southern ends. Bleaching had affected an average of 96 per cent of living coral. By June, after peak heat stress, mortality had reached 92 per cent, with some areas seeing losses of more than 99 per cent. 'Our results are concerning for coral resilience considering the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme heat events predicted for the near future, with potentially irreversible consequences for reef ecosystems,' Prof Jane Williamson from Macquarie University, the study's senior author, said. The researchers used high-resolution imagery from drones to track the same reef areas before and after the bleaching, giving them precise visual data on coral loss. 'Using drone-derived imagery, we followed the amount of bleached and living coral during and after the bleaching event,' Prof Williamson said. 'Use of this technology lets us upscale the effects of the bleaching event over larger areas but still at high precision.' Unusually, the study found no significant difference in mortality between the northern and southern reef sections. 'We often expect environmental differences between sites to influence bleaching outcomes, but in this case, the damage was widespread and severe across all surveyed areas,' Dr Raoult said. In some reef patches, less than 1 per cent of coral remained alive, indicating that even moderate heat stress could lead to catastrophic outcomes for ecosystems already weakened by repeated events. Bleaching is a phenomenon where corals lose their vibrant colours and turn white, normally due to changes in temperature. Coral reefs are among the most diverse ecosystems on the planet, providing habitat and food for an array of marine species. Scientists say the 2024 event pushed an already vulnerable ecosystem over the edge. Lizard Island has suffered repeated ecological shocks in recent years, including severe bleaching in 2016 and 2017, cyclones, and outbreaks of coral-eating Crown-of-Thorns starfish. Despite experiencing a heat stress level of 6C-weeks, lower than some other parts of the reef, coral mortality at Lizard Island exceeded historical records. There was no major difference between the northern and southern sites, but the cumulative impacts of climate-linked events appeared to have compounded damage to the reef. The researchers continue to monitor the Lizard Island corals, hoping to assess whether any recovery happens by 2026.
Yahoo
04-07-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Coral transplants could help save Miami's iconic reefs from climate change
Scientists are transplanting crossbred coral fragments onto a Miami reef, devastated by bleaching two years ago. This collaborative effort by the University of Miami, the Florida Aquarium, and Honduras-based Tela Coral aims to help reefs survive rising ocean temperatures due to global warming and climate change. Andrew Baker, a professor of marine biology and ecology at the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School and director of the Coral Reef Futures Lab, commented as divers planted the corals: "It's the end of a very long process." This Caribbean coral introduction strategy evolved over recent 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 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. 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.'
The Independent
04-07-2025
- Science
- The Independent
Coral transplants could help save Miami's iconic reefs from climate change
Scientists are transplanting crossbred coral fragments onto a Miami reef, devastated by bleaching two years ago. This collaborative effort by the University of Miami, the Florida Aquarium, and Honduras-based Tela Coral aims to help reefs survive rising ocean temperatures due to global warming and climate change. Andrew Baker, a professor of marine biology and ecology at the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School and director of the Coral Reef Futures Lab, commented as divers planted the corals: "It's the end of a very long process." This Caribbean coral introduction strategy evolved over recent 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.'
ABC News
02-07-2025
- Science
- ABC News
Research finds understanding how far coral larvae travels could help to protect Great Barrier Reef populations
The further coral larvae travels the better chance reefs have of bouncing back from disaster, research off the Queensland coast has found. New research from the University of Queensland (UQ) aims to better understand the diversity of reef populations and connectivity of coral species — helping to improve resilience. Over a 12-month period, samples of two species of coral were taken and studied from a region stretching from Flinders Reef, near Moreton Island, up to the Torres Strait, taking in the Great Barrier Reef. Lead researcher Zoe Meziere said the data collected helped to paint a picture of the history of two of the most abundant species of coral. "I sampled really small fragments of corals from the reefs and brought them back to the lab to sequence the DNA," she said. "From there, we can infer events that have happened in the history of these coral populations and quantify how diverse populations are and how connected corals are as well. For this study, funded by the partnership between the federal government's Reef Trust and the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, Ms Meziere compared two coral species with very different reproductive modes. The larvae of Stylophora pistillata, a brooding coral species where eggs are fertilised internally before being released, travelled between 23 and 102 metres before beginning to grow on the sea floor. While the spawning Popillopora verrucosa coral — that sees larvae develop in the water after the mass release of eggs and sperm — were found to disperse up to 52 kilometres away. Ms Meziere said measuring the different distances coral larvae may travel can help to protect ocean habitats. "Genetic diversity is important for reef resilience. The more diverse the population is, the more adaptive potential it has, so it's more likely to bounce back after disturbance," she said. "With spawning larvae able to disperse across tens of kilometres, they could cross to other reefs." That means, in the event a reef was completely decimated, there's potential larvae coming from another reef could help to repopulate it. "For brooding corals that cannot disperse very far away, we probably need to have more local conservation planning, so I think that's going to be a key thing going into the future," she said. Across the large geographic area of focus, the UQ research creates a benchmark understanding that Ms Meziere said could be broadened to other species. "There's been a bit of research [on the Great Barrier Reef] for fish, but for corals, we really didn't have a good understanding," she said. "This is the first study of its kind looking at connectivity in a very holistic kind of way and quantifying those connectivity patterns." The research can be used to inform stakeholders and improve in conservation efforts. "We really need to better understand the biology of the species to better plan for conservation and restoration… this study helps that," Ms Meziere said. "Essentially, we're saying those efforts need to be tailored… and suited to different species. That's the main takeaway. Tanya Murphy, a community campaigner for the Great Barrier Reef with the Australian Marine Conservation Society (AMCS), said she was pleased more work was being done to understand how reefs could be more resilient. "AMCS is all about following the science, so studies like this really help to give us a better and better picture of how the reef regenerates," she said. "All of that science together helps to better inform things like emergency response plans… it's all part of the puzzle." The research has been published in peer-reviewed journal Science Advances.
