Biscayne Bay, FLA. (AP) – A team of scientists from Miami University, Florida Aquarium and Tila Coral work in Honduras together to plant clips on coral reefs off the Miami coast, which was destroyed by bleaching two years ago.
They are looking for ways to help coral reefs remain an increase in the temperatures of the oceans resulting from the phenomenon of global warming and climate change.
“It is the end of a very long operation,” said Andrew Baker, a professor of marine biology and the environment at the Rosinstel School at Miami University and the director of Al -Marjaniya Laboratory.
The plan to enter coral reefs from the Caribbean region has evolved over the past few years.
“We had this idea that we really needed to try to help coral reefs in Florida by introducing more diversity from all over the Caribbean Sea, while realizing that some of the biggest threats of coral reefs, such as climate change, is a truly global phenomenon, and if you try to save the coral reefs in Florida on their own, we can provide some external assistance.”
Coral breeding It was also implemented in Hawaii, where scientists were working in 2021 to accelerate the evolutionary clock of coral reefs to raise “superior coral reefs” that could stand in front of the effects of global warming better.
Why coincide with the coral reefs of Honduras?
Baker Group cooperated with Florida Aquarium and Tila Coral, as it brought shrapnel from coral reefs from the warm coral reefs of TELA, Honduras, which was born in the tanks in the sink.
“We were able to cross the spawning of these coral reefs, sperm and eggs, to produce children. One of the parents from Florida, one of the parents from Honduras,” said Baker.
They chose coral reefs off TELA because the water is about 2 ° C (35.6 ° F) warmer than water off the coast of Florida.
“However, coral reefs in these environments, especially Elkhorn reefs, are really flourishing,” Baker said.
He pointed out that there are hundreds of meters in length, full of booming chlorine.
“However, they live there, despite the really warm conditions and also very nutritious water,” Baker said.
Baker said that the conditions are similar to those that Florida will face during the next century.
It is also the first time that it is allowed to photograph international coral reefs for cultivation on wild coral reefs.
“So we are really excited to see how this is doing,” he said.
Hope is for coral reefs to be “tolerant”, which Baker and the team will test throughout the summer.
What are Elkhorn reefs?
Baker said that Elkhorn reef is one of the most famous species in Florida and is valuable because it is the top of coral reefs.
“It is the coral reefs that protect the coasts from storms and floods. So if you have the inhabitants of two healthy reefs, you have the wonderful coral reefs that act almost, such as the stumbling block that the waves and storms pass through and their energy is dissipated before they reach the coast.”
Elkhorn reef is seriously decreased, partly due to coral bleaching in 2023 And the temperatures of the sea warming, Baker said.
While the choir gets its bright colors from the colored algae that lives inside, the prolonged warmth leads to algae toxic compounds. Coral reefs expel them, and the blatant white skeleton – referred to as the name Coral bleaching It is left behind, and the weak coral is at risk of death.
“We have lost more than 95 % of the coral reefs that were on coral reefs in Florida at that point,” Baker said.
Kerry O’Neill, director and world of the world on the coral conservation program in Aquarium, said that some of the coral reefs that were born in the Florida aquarium laboratory arrived there in 2020.
She said shrapnel more than Honduras and Florida would continue to live in the center.
“We hope that every year in the future, we can make more and more crosses and continue to know which parents produce the best offspring.”
How do they grow coral reefs on coral reefs?
Small coral reef fragments were placed on small concrete bases along the coral reefs on Tuesday.
“We have arranged them in a certain way, we can compare the performance of both coral reefs,” Baker said.
The team will study how to compare the coral reefs with Honduran’s father with the entire existing of Florida.
He said, “It is in fact the future that we look forward to and in particular, and it is a warm and warm summer future, and how these coral reefs do and do they have more heat tolerance than the indigenous Florida population, because this is what is the goal of the entire project.”
Baker said it was the most exciting project that he worked on during his 20 -year -old at the University of Miami.
Hope in the future
If coral reefs flourish, it may provide a plan to work across the Caribbean Sea to share coral reefs.
“This is a project on international cooperation, about the fact that our environment does not really contain closed borders, as we can work together to make things better in the world,” said Julie Perwald, co -founder of Tely Cora. “This indicates that when we talk to each other, when we work together, we can do something that may be a variable for life, not only for us but for coral reefs, coral reefs and all animals that depend on coral reefs.”
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Fortaro from Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
