Researchers in Florida are trying to catch coral spawn to freeze and grow into coral babies as a way of protecting threatened reefs.
“How do I explain this? So, corals in Florida are having sex and so scientists are freezing their spawn to make sure that they don’t go extinct,” says marine scientist Shireen Rahimi. “No, this is not a plot line from Jurassic Park.”
Each August, corals in Florida release their eggs and sperm into the water en masse in an attempt to reproduce. This usually happens around the full moon.
But Florida’s corals, threatened by warming waters and pollution, are incredibly vulnerable. “Florida’s corals are super stressed out,” says Rahimi.
“Our coral reefs have functionally collapsed. They can’t reproduce on their own anymore.”
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Researchers from the Coral Restoration Foundation are using this annual spawning event as an opportunity to protect the reef by collecting and freezing the spawn and growing them into genetically diverse baby corals that can be replanted into the wild, creating “the corals of tomorrow,” says Rahimi.
These resilient corals could pass important adaptations to their babies, “This year, the corals that are spawning are those that survived the Fourth Global Bleaching Event, and so could be passing along epigenetic adaptations and better thermal resilience to their offspring,” Rahimi explains.
But while coral restoration is helping us prevent these vital ecosystems from going extinct, we need to reduce pollution, overfishing and carbon emissions if they are to thrive. The restoration, notes Rahimi, is just “buying us time.”
Video credit: Shireen Rahimi and Coral Restoration Foundation
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