The Race to Breed 'Supercoral' to Save Us From Climate Doom

The Race to Breed ‘Supercoral’ to Save Us From Climate Doom
HOT WATER
Coral reefs play a vital role in marine ecosystems and protecting coastal communities—but they’re in greater danger than ever.
David Axe
Updated Dec. 30, 2023 3:40AM EST / Published Dec. 30, 2023 12:04AM EST


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The strategy is simple: Find corals that have genes that make them resistant to the damaging effects of extreme heat—and help those corals breed.

But simple doesn’t mean easy. The same heat waves that make the selective breeding of coral so urgent also make this adaptation effort harder. That became painfully apparent this summer. The underwater nurseries where scientists raise many of their special corals themselves got too hot, necessitating an emergency evacuation.

The stakes are enormous—for the reefs and for us. Corals are an important link in ocean food chains that feed schools of fish that in turn feed millions of people. And the calcium structures that these invertebrate colonies produce—the “reef” in “coral reef”—break up waves and help prevent flooding in coastal communities.

But we haven’t been kind to our corals. Pollution, dredging, reckless navigation by ships and overfishing can damage reefs, but it’s the warming climate that has wreaked the most havoc. When a coral gets too hot, it can expel the symbiotic algae that lives inside it, and which gives it its color. Biologists call this “bleaching.”

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https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-race-to-breed-supercoral-to-save-us-from-climate-doom