The Great Barrier Reef- resistant coral

[SailOar]

Divers are attempting to regrow Great Barrier Reef with electricity

A trial is underway to restore damaged coral on the Great Barrier Reef using electricity....

Nathan Cook at conservation group Reef Ecologic and his colleagues are attempting to regrow surviving coral fragments on steel frames. The frames are placed on damaged parts of the reef and stimulated with electricity to accelerate the coral’s growth (see video).

Electrified metal frames have previously been used to encourage coral growth on reefs in South-East Asia, the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean. They have been shown to attract mineral deposits that help corals grow 3 to 4 times faster than normal....

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by Exile

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) begs to differ.

If sediment didn't drift, they wouldn't be dredging.

[Exile]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

If sediment didn't drift, they wouldn't be dredging.

By posting this . . .

Originally Posted by Exile

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) begs to differ.

I was responding to this . . .

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

sediment shouldn't deliberately be dropped at/near reefs.

and not this . . .

Sediment drifts, no?

Don't worry, as a frequent sailor in the Chesapeake Bay and up & down the US e. coast, I'm all too familiar with drifting sediment.

[SailOar]

Can new science save dying coral reefs?

....A report released on November 28 by the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NAS) comes to the same conclusion: Human intervention is needed to ensure the persistence of the world’s coral reefs, which are of incalculable value to “human well-being, national economies, and future wonder.”....

Large-scale coral bleaching events used to occur every 27 years, notes Australia’s independent climate-communication organization the Climate Council in a report on the reef published in July. The current rate is once every six years. If climate change is not curtailed, the report advises, by the 2030s the Great Barrier Reef could experience mass coral bleaching every two years.

By 2050, says the National Academies report, most of the world’s reefs will be exposed to bleaching conditions annually.....

Parts of Opal Reef, a popular dive tourism site and one of more than 2,900 individual reefs that make up the Great Barrier Reef system, suffered catastrophic mortality during the recent bleaching. It was here, in late August, that the coral transplantation took place.

David Suggett, a marine biologist who leads the Future Reefs Progam of the University of Technology Sydney, worked with a team of researchers and a local reef-tour company to take fragments of coral that had survived the bleaching and grow them on mesh platforms in a sandy lagoon adjacent to the reef. Twelve species were chosen, covering a range of coral forms from branching to plate-shaped to globular.

After a few months of growth and stabilization, these fragments were planted out using a novel type of clip that enables quick-and-easy attachment to the reef matrix.

The question the research is trying to answer, says Suggett, is whether propagation and outplanting of stress-surviving corals can speed up reef recovery, rather than having to rely on the slower natural process of coral reproduction to replace the individuals that died.

“The success of the project won’t be known until we have another marine heat wave,” says Suggett. That’s likely to be sooner rather than later....

[GordMay]

Reef in Peril
The Climate Council’s new report, ‘Lethal Consequences: Climate Change Impacts on the Great Barrier Reef,’ shows the future survival of coral reefs around the world, including the Great Barrier Reef, depends on how deeply and swiftly greenhouse gas pollution levels are slashed over the coming years and decades.
Key Findings (in brief):
1. Unprecedented bleaching events on the Great Barrier Reef in 2016 and 2017 have resulted in mass coral mortality.
2. The 2016 bleaching event was at least 175 times more likely to occur due to climate change.
3. Rising sea surface temperatures over the past century have resulted in more frequent and prolonged global marine heatwaves.
4. The future of coral reefs around the world depends on how much and how fast we reduce greenhouse gas pollution levels now and in the coming years and decades.
...
“Lethal Consequences: Climate Change Impacts on the Great Barrier Reef”
➥ https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/wp...ngle-Pages.pdf

[Exile]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Reef in Peril
The Climate Council’s new report, ‘Lethal Consequences: Climate Change Impacts on the Great Barrier Reef,’ shows the future survival of coral reefs around the world, including the Great Barrier Reef, depends on how deeply and swiftly greenhouse gas pollution levels are slashed over the coming years and decades.
Key Findings (in brief):
1. Unprecedented bleaching events on the Great Barrier Reef in 2016 and 2017 have resulted in mass coral mortality.
2. The 2016 bleaching event was at least 175 times more likely to occur due to climate change.
3. Rising sea surface temperatures over the past century have resulted in more frequent and prolonged global marine heatwaves.
4. The future of coral reefs around the world depends on how much and how fast we reduce greenhouse gas pollution levels now and in the coming years and decades.
...
“Lethal Consequences: Climate Change Impacts on the Great Barrier Reef”
➥ https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/wp...ngle-Pages.pdf

We just read, a little while back in the thread, that the GBR did not begin to be intensively studied & surveyed until the 1970's. IF true, then how could these scientists conclude that recent bleaching events were "unprecedented"??

We know that the planet has previously experienced temperatures warmer than they are now, and warmer than what they are predicted to be by mainstream scientists over the next century. We also know that warming temps produce higher levels of atmospheric CO2, and we have records showing that this long pre-dates the fossil fuel age. And finally, many scientists believe that warmer water is a factor which contributes to coral bleaching, which may at least partially explain more bleaching in the northern part of the GBR but new coral growth on the southern end.

Yet, despite all of these knowns & unknowns, and despite the apparent lack of studies & surveys of how the GBR responded to previous periods of warming waters, your scientific source boldly concludes that "[t]he future of coral reefs around the world depends on how much and how fast we reduce greenhouse gas pollution levels now and in the coming years and decades."

Really? Nothing about cyclones, run-off, ship traffic, dredge spoil dumping, overfishing, sunscreen, or any of the other knowns & unknowns which impact coral reef health? I don't think you have to be a denier, skeptic, Professor Ridd hater, or adherent to the Cornwall Declaration to consider these "Findings" in a more critical light.

[StuM]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Reef in Peril
The Climate Council’s new report,...

Enough said. That's arch-alarmist Flim-flam Flannery's "non-profit" (or is that non-prophet") outfit.

[SailOar]

Proximity to land determines how coral reef communities respond to climate change events

A new international study has found that the marine wildlife that live amongst the coral are affected differently by devastating climate change events, depending on how close to the mainland they are found.....

While those environmental events caused substantial and widespread loss of coral across all reefs, the numbers of herbivorous fishes remained stable (inner-shelf reefs) or even increased (middle- and outer-shelf reefs).

Dr Richardson, a marine biologist at the University of Exeter's Penryn Campus said: "After widespread loss of corals due to large storms or severe coral bleaching events, herbivorous reef fish are vital for removing seaweed that starts to grow over the dead corals, so that new corals can grow, and surviving corals can recover.....

Importantly, however, the study showed that the number of herbivorous fish species decreased following the environmental events.

"The loss of species is of greatest concern, affecting the functioning of these reefs and their capacity to respond to future disturbances. It may be setting these reefs up for future ecological surprises" said Dr Hoey from James Cook University in Australia........

[This is a repost from another thread]

[SailOar]

Researchers embrace a radical idea: engineering coral to cope with climate change

...the National Sea Simulator, [is] a $25 million facility nestled in eucalyptus-lined hills on the shore of the Coral Sea, which was opened in 2013 by the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS). Here, in dozens of seawater tanks where conditions can be precisely matched to those of the ocean today or in the future, Van Oppen and other scientists are tinkering with creatures that are the very cornerstones of reef ecosystems. Imagine ecologists cultivating whole new breeds of trees to restock a devastated wilderness. In the minds of some researchers, the work could help shape the future of some of the world's richest underwater places. But the endeavor will first have to overcome formidable technical challenges—and concerns that such interventions could bring new problems.....

Today, four major lines of research exist:

• One involves cross-breeding corals to create heat-tolerant varieties, either by mixing strains within a species or by crossing two species that would not normally interbreed.
• The second enlists genetic engineering techniques to tweak coral or algae.
• A third tries to rapidly evolve hardier strains of coral and algae by rearing them for generations in overheated lab conditions.
• A fourth approach, the newest, seeks to manipulate the coral's microbiome.....

[Puddleduck]

Originally Posted by SailOar

Researchers embrace a radical idea: engineering coral to cope with climate change

Thanks for sharing.

Fascinating and really interesting read. I like the way it’s been written too!

[SailOar]

Algal partner responds to climate-change stresses more strongly than coral host

Coral bleaching events -- when stress disrupts the partnership that benefits both corals and the algae that normally live within their tissues -- occur nearly five times more frequently now than they did just four decades ago. These events have devastated large swaths of otherwise vibrant coral reef habitats, as well as the fisheries and tourism they nurture, thus threatening the $375 billion that scientists estimate healthy reefs add to the global economy each year....

The research team proceeded by exposing one group of coral larvae and their algal symbionts to aquarium waters warmed and acidified to conditions projected for the year 2100, while holding a control group under present-day conditions of temperature and pH. They then compared how coral and algal cells from these experimental and control groups differed in terms of gene expression....

To the researchers' surprise, they found that stress alters gene expression most noticeably in the algae. Says Rivest, "We saw more differences in gene expression in the symbiont than in the coral, which was really interesting, because I think people assume that the coral -- since it's the animal and is bigger -- would be the one in control and most likely to change." The researchers discovered that 89 genes were differentially expressed in the algal cells, while only 17 were differentially expressed in the coral....

"Our results," says Rivest, "show that algae play a more important role than we previously thought -- even during this very early and critical life-history stage. If you don't have success in the larval stage you won't have new adult corals on the reef. In terms of reefs persisting into the future, the success of this early stage is key."....

[GordMay]

Interesting.
Evolution is a gradual change to the DNA of a species over many generations. It can occur by natural selection, when certain traits created by genetic mutations help an organism survive or reproduce. Such mutations are thus more likely to be passed on to the next generation, so they increase in frequency in a population. Gradually, these mutations and their associated traits become more common among the whole group.
It can happen surprisingly fast, within 50 to 100 generations. But those rapid changes do not always persist, and may be confined to small populations.

Perhaps, in SailOar's case, the algae reproduce more quickly than the coral polyps, resulting in more generations within the study time period.

However, for reasons that are not completely clear, the data show the long-term dynamics of evolution to be quite slow. Across a broad range of species, research has found that, for a major change to persist and for changes to accumulate, it took about one million years. The exact cause of these long-term, persistent evolutionary changes is not certain. The scientists said that climate change, in itself, does not appear to be a driving force, because many species have remained substantially unchanged over time periods when climates changed dramatically.

“The million-year wait for macroevolutionary bursts” ~ by Josef C. Uyeda
☞ https://www.pnas.org/content/108/38/15908


The Original Research ARTICLE (upon which Science Daily reported, per SailOar's link):

“Host and Symbionts in Pocillopora damicornis Larvae Display Different Transcriptomic Responses to Ocean Acidification and Warming” ~ by Emily B. Rivest et al.
☞ https://www.frontiersin.org/articles...018.00186/full

[Exile]

Originally Posted by GordMay

The scientists said that climate change, in itself, does not appear to be a driving force, because many species have remained substantially unchanged over time periods when climates changed dramatically.

“The million-year wait for macroevolutionary bursts” ~ by Josef C. Uyeda
☞ https://www.pnas.org/content/108/38/15908


The Original Research ARTICLE (upon which Science Daily reported, per SailOar's link):

“Host and Symbionts in Pocillopora damicornis Larvae Display Different Transcriptomic Responses to Ocean Acidification and Warming” ~ by Emily B. Rivest et al.
☞ https://www.frontiersin.org/articles...018.00186/full

Suggests we might want to use some restraint before trying to alter the genetic make-up of coral species in an attempt to make them more "adaptable."

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Exile

Suggests we might want to use some restraint before trying to alter the genetic make-up of coral species in an attempt to make them more "adaptable."

Indeed. We don't want to run afoul of the Law of Unintended Consequences.
There are a lot of things worth worrying about these days: wealth inequality, climate change, advances in artificial intelligence, and so on. But, bioengineering, and its potential unintended consequences, are arguably as scary as any of these things.

[Reefmagnet]

Originally Posted by GordMay

Interesting.
Evolution is a gradual change to the DNA of a species over many generations. It can occur by natural selection, when certain traits created by genetic mutations help an organism survive or reproduce. Such mutations are thus more likely to be passed on to the next generation, so they increase in frequency in a population. Gradually, these mutations and their associated traits become more common among the whole group.
It can happen surprisingly fast, within 50 to 100 generations. But those rapid changes do not always persist, and may be confined to small populations.

Perhaps, in SailOar's case, the algae reproduce more quickly than the coral polyps, resulting in more generations within the study time period.

However, for reasons that are not completely clear, the data show the long-term dynamics of evolution to be quite slow. Across a broad range of species, research has found that, for a major change to persist and for changes to accumulate, it took about one million years. The exact cause of these long-term, persistent evolutionary changes is not certain. The scientists said that climate change, in itself, does not appear to be a driving force, because many species have remained substantially unchanged over time periods when climates changed dramatically.

“The million-year wait for macroevolutionary bursts” ~ by Josef C. Uyeda
☞ https://www.pnas.org/content/108/38/15908


The Original Research ARTICLE (upon which Science Daily reported, per SailOar's link):

“Host and Symbionts in Pocillopora damicornis Larvae Display Different Transcriptomic Responses to Ocean Acidification and Warming” ~ by Emily B. Rivest et al.
☞ https://www.frontiersin.org/articles...018.00186/full

I think that the boffins have neglected to consider one factor; de-evolution.

By this I mean that organisms can evolve quickly to changing conditions, but once these conditions are removed then subsequent generations will then rapidly de-evolve. This would be the reason why organisms like symbiotic algae and coral polyps appear vulnerable to climate change, sea water chemistry and sea level when assessed as a current snapshot yet history shows that they are a for more durable organism. These rapid cycles of responding and adapting to the environment get lost in geological time scales.

Plenty of examples of this around today like bacteria resistance to penicillin, insect resistance to pesticides, Aussie rabbits resistance to strains of myxomatosis and even New Zealand's flightless parrots.