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Australian Australian Australian Great Barrier Reef is the largest living structure on this planet and the homeland of a wide range of species. But in recent years, I have been subjected to A series of devastating group bleaching eventsThe heart of the vibrant colors of parts of the bright white coral reefs.
Throughout the world, coral reefs suffer from a similar fate More than 80 % Among the coral reefs in the ocean, it struck a continuous global bleaching event that started in 2023, due to the high sea temperatures. Bleaching can be fatal, as coral reefs are exhausted of algae that lives and works as a food source.
The effects can be disastrous. While coral reefs occupy only 0.01 % of the ocean floor, they support a quarter of marine life, as well as providing people with food and living, helping to reduce storms and protect from corrosion.
At the United Nations Oceal Conference this month, 11 countries have signed a pledge To protect coral reefs with a climate, separately, governments and partners pledged 25 million dollars for a global fund for coral reefs.
Ultimately, if coral reefs are preserved, the efforts made to reduce the high temperature of the ocean must be ascended by reducing carbon emissions, but scientists are also looking for other solutions to preserve coral reefs in the world of warming.
Coral reef whitening from a sea heat. Christine Robert
At the University of Sydney Technology, future coral reef scientists are looking for “superior coral reefs” – the species that are naturally flexible for environmental changes, such as high temperatures, acidity or low oxygen levels. One of the goals of the program is to define these coral reefs, discover the methods they use to survive, and use them as a scheme to support other coral reefs in the most severe environments in the future.
“We have a focus on trying to understand the elasticity of coral reefs in a changing environment,” says Dr. Emma Camp, a marine biologist and coral reef leader in the future. “How do we build the flexibility of coral reefs to survive from the pressures they will inevitably face? But also, how can we use technology and science as human to support coral reefs to make them more flexible?”
Searching for superior coral reefs
The camp was first discovered “Super Coral” that grows in the mangrove lakes, which are naturally hot and acidic. Since then, she says that the team has found up to 40 of these harsh types that grow in different environments around the world. Now, their focus is on finding them in the great coral barrier.
“(We want) to determine the coral species with greater heat tolerance, but they are still able to maintain other important features: we want to be fast farmers, we want them to provide good habitat for other living creatures that live on coral reefs,” says Kristen Robert, a post -PhD researcher on the team.
During the campaigns to the Great Coral Coral Bar, the team collects and analyzes specific coral types. They perform a test tolerance in the actual time on the samples using a special stereotype that helps to predict the adversity has the best chance to survive with high water temperatures. It also takes shrapnel from coral to the laboratory, where they can extract DNA and perform more comprehensive tests.
Once you specify the types of stress, Coral care program -A project participated in its founding in the camp, which works with local tourism operators and indigenous societies, is based on the widely re-cultivating coral reefs-to publish it on the coral nursery role they created in various locations through the Great Reef, before “overcoming” coral reefs to help restore the areas affected by whitening.
Since the beginning of the program in 2018, more than 125,000 coral reefs have been exceeded across the Great Reef – off Kerns, Port Douglas and Whitsndays – with a Survival rate is 85 %.
Great Barrier Reef covers a wide area in the Pacific Ocean off northeastern Australia. – Tom Booth/CNN
But the restoration of the great coral barrier areas is not an easy task. It contains approximately 3000 individual coral reef 60 % of coral reefs I was recently exposed to potential bleaching. The team hopes that the areas where the transplants have already occurred will show clear signs of restoration.
Other laboratories around the world are developing similar solutions, with promising results. the Australian Institute of Maritime Sciences (AIMS) uses the artificial selection and selective education to develop coral reefs that bear the heat, Reporting These genetic interventions can work, but with varying success between species. UK Newcastle University She also raised coral reefs that she can better escape maritime heat waves, although they have not yet conducted wide -ranging experiments in the wild.
studies It has shown that the efforts to restore traditional coral reefs can be retracted within a few years if there is a bleaching event, but through the cultivation of heat -related coral reefs, the coral care program hopes to be able to restore future events. “By focusing our efforts on identifying and increasing the abundance of coral reefs that bear the heat in the population, we improve our efforts by ensuring that these population is more flexible in future thermal stress events,” says Robert.
Scaling
The main challenge-whether with natural coral reefs or selectively-is how to increase the process of planting, which is intensively and expensive, which requires people to dive into coral reefs and cultivation of coral reefs by hand.
For this reason, the concentration of coral care program was the involvement of tourism operators and local communities. “We can build a scale by obtaining pockets from societies that do these procedures,” says Camp.
It cooperates with seven operators for tourism on Great Barrier Reef, including wavelength reef trips, so that tourists are multiplied by tourists. On these trips, the crew members – all of whom are trained divers and marine biologists – tend to be coral, and they tend to custody and conduct surveys in the region. The team helped in the wavelength to create the program with CAMP and it was also an integral part of the work The role of coral Along coral reefs and data collection on coral health.
However, there is an end to the amount that can only be achieved through difficult coral species. Future Reefs also explores other solutions, including whether the different coral feeding or vitamins can change its tolerance to heat.
Coral reefs feed by extending claws from their bodies to capture microscopic food particles. Previous research has shown that nutrition Zoooplanton coral reefs – Small animals floating near the surface of the water – After a whitening event, they can help enhance flexibility, and coral reefs can grow Pillars filled with mineral nutrients Like manganese and zinc. But such methods have not yet been tried on a large scale.
“Although a lot about coral reefs, we know relatively little about coral nutrition,” says Camp. “This, for me, is the field in which research and science can really help us enhance the practice of restoration by understanding more about what coral reefs mainly need through stress.”
A world that collects coral samples for the test. Jake Crossby
Although the team in the laboratory in Sydney in its early stages has tried food feeding such as a microscopic brush that was fed with different types of algae, and adding some minerals or vitamins to the water that was absorbed by coral reefs.
The goal is to develop an annex that can give coral reefs additional nutrients when emphasizing them, which helps them to stay or recover from comprehensive bleaching events.
“It looks like us as human beings: when we run, we may take an attachment to give us a boost,” says Camp.
“These types of new ideas that we have to explore, and there can be nothing outside the table, because if we do nothing, the end result will be a loss in coral reefs around the world,” she says.
Although hope will provide scientific innovation and developable solutions a kind of stopping coral reefs, CAMP warns that its long -term protection is due to the issue of coral reef whitening, which means reducing greenhouse gas emissions and reducing global warming.
“There is only much that we can do to buy time for coral reefs,” she says. “We have to deal with climate change, because if the temperatures continue to increase, we will request a lot of coral reefs to survive through the environment they face.”
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