ARTICLES
Meet the Super Corals that can handle Acid, Heat and Suffocation
Resilient corals are offering hope for bleached reefs. Emma Camp
Author
extreme environments may help us unlock the secret of coral
resilience, thereby assisting to save our iconic reefs.
1. E
mma F. Camp; DECRA and UTS Chancellor's Research
Fellow, Climate Change Cluster, Future Reefs Research
Program, University of Technology, Sydney.
2. D
avid Suggett; Associate Professor in Marine Biology,
University of Technology, Syd-ney.
This article was initially published in ‘The Conversation’ on 30th
August, 2019.
Climate change is rapidly changing the oceans, and driving
coral reefs around the world to breaking point. Widely publicised
marine heatwaves aren’t the only threat corals are facing: seas
and oceans are increasingly acidic, have less oxygen in them,
and are gradually warming as a whole.
Each of these problems reduces coral growth and fitness, making
it harder for reefs to recover from sudden events such as massive
heatwaves.
Bleached coral in the Seychelles. Emma Camp,
Author provided
Our research, published on 30th August, 2019, in ‘Marine
Ecology Progress Series’, investigates corals on the Great Barrier
Reef that are surprisingly good at surviving in these increasingly
hostile wa-ters. Finding out how these “super corals” can live in
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SCIENCE EDUCATIONAL NEWS VOL 68 NO 4