Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Apparently the Great Barrier Reef is so dead from climate change that it takes teams of well-funded scientists to plant coral. Except for the embarrassingly healthy areas that Peter Ridd naturally photographed.
In the fight to save the Great Barrier Reef from climate change
Our reporter, Donna Lujoined researchers trying to regrow damaged parts of the Great Barrier Reef by collecting and incubating coral larvae
LIFE January 6, 2021
By Donna Lu
“I recommend going online. It’s very good for you, ”jokes marine ecologist Peter Harrison. “It’s good for your skin, it’s good for your clothes.”
The net in question is a huge, slimy thing with a fine net at its base that contains a precious charge: coral larvae that have been incubating in the ocean for five days. Some white sun shirts have already fallen into the net and are covered with a greenish algae stain on contact.
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The task on the boats today is to collect larvae from three floating nursery pools in the Wistari Reef, where they have matured, and to sow them on damaged reef sections that no longer have live coral. The net of each pool is suspended from a square pontoon that is approximately three by three meters.
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The team will not be able to see the results of its manual labor for several years. The larvae were captured by corals that weathered recent mass bleaching events. Hence, the idea is that their offspring may also be more heat-resistant. The researchers hope to improve the restoration in several locations in the future and use robots to distribute the larvae more efficiently.
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Read more: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24933160-700-inside-the-fight-to-save-the-great-barrier-reef-from-climate-change/
I’m sure it’s a lot of fun sailing around the Great Barrier Reef on the taxpayer’s penny, but I wonder how much damage the scientists could do.
Corals have survived the past 200 million years due to their genetic diversity. Regardless of the crisis or extinction coral experienced, some members of the species were genetically different enough from their counterparts to survive and the species to continue.
As of 2018;
Genetic diversity is key to coral survival
April 18, 2018
A team of Western Australian researchers has taken a step closer to understanding how coral reefs re-seed themselves and adapt to growing environmental threats.
Genetic diversity is critical in helping animal species adapt to change. However, this team from the Australian Institute of Marine Science, Curtin University, and the Western Australian Museum first tracked coral genetic diversity over time.
In a novel study spanning 10 years, the researchers examined the effects of coral bleaching and cyclones on the abundance and genetic diversity of reef building corals in the reefs of northwest Australia.
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“Until recently, we didn’t know how genetic diversity actually responds to disruptions related to climate change. In this study, we found that these corals have shown a high degree of genetic diversity over the past ten years, despite severe bleaching and hurricanes. ” Underwood said.
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Read more: https://www.aims.gov.au/docs/media/latest-releases/-/asset_publisher/8Kfw/content/genetic-diversity-is-key-to-coral-survival
I doubt that ecologist Peter Harris’ seeding efforts will do that much – the Great Barrier Reef is just too big for a few patches of cultivated coral to seriously affect its habitat.
But surely any act of propagating a small fraction of human cultured genotypes at the expense of wild genotypes that might otherwise thrive in the cultured locations will, to a lesser extent, undermine the genetic diversity that is key to long-term coral survival. Even if the varieties thrive in current conditions, their success will accelerate the depletion of the genetic diversity the coral may need as conditions change.
It just seems wrong to undermine the genetic diversity that has protected corals through events far worse than anything we are likely to do on the planet, even if the impact of the intervention is likely to be negligible.
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