by Key Biscayne, Florida (AP) – A team of scientists from the University of Miami, the Florida Aquarium and the Tela Coral in Honduras works together to transplant from coral bleaching to a reef in front of Miami’s coast two years ago.
They are looking for opportunities to help reefs to survive increased sea temperatures through global warming and climate change.
“It is the end of a very long process,” said Andrew Baker, professor of marine biology and ecology at the Rosenstiel School of the University of Miami and director of the Coral Reef Futures Lab, on Tuesday when divers planted the corals in front of Miami.
The plan to introduce corals from the Caribbean has developed in recent years.
“We had the idea that we really had to try to help Florida’s coral reef by introducing more diversity from the Caribbean and realizing that some of the greatest threats to corals such as climate change are really global phenomena, and if they try to save Floridas Reefs ourselves, we can give them some external help,” said Baker.
In Hawaii, a coral breeding was also carried out in Hawaii, where scientists worked in 2021 to accelerate the coral’s evolutionary clock in order to breed “super corals” that can better withstand the effects of global warming.
Why crossed with corals from Honduras?
The Baker’s Group teamed up with the Florida Aquarium and Tela Coral and brought fragments of corals from a warm reef from Tela, Honduras, which emerged in tanks in the aquarium.
“We were able to cross the spawning from these corals, the sperm and the eggs to produce babies. One parent from Florida, a parent from Honduras,” said Baker.
They chose the reef from Tela because the water is about 2 degrees Celsius (35.6 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than the water off the coast of Florida.
“And yet the corals thrive in these environments and especially the Elkhorn corals,” said Baker.
He noticed that there were extensive beds that are hundreds of meters long, full of blooming Elkhorn.
“And yet they survive there despite the really warm conditions and also rather cross -nutrient waters,” said Baker.
The conditions are similar to the Florida in the next century, said Baker.
It is also the first time that the international intersection of corals plants on wild reefs.
“So we are very excited to see how it does,” he said.
The hope is that the corals will be “thermally tolerant” that Baker and the team will test all summer.
What are elkhorn corals?
Elkhorn corals are some of the most iconic types of Florida and are valuable because they form the coat of arms of the reef, said Baker.
“And the reef protects the coastal lines from storms and floods. If you have healthy Elkhorn coral populations, you have a big reef that almost like a speed thrust that behaves and storms, and resolve your energy before you come on the coast,” he said.
Elkhorn corals are seriously decreased, partly thanks to the coral bleach in 2023 and the warming of the sea temperatures, said Baker.
While corals receive their bright colors from the colorful algae that live in them, the longer warmth leads to the algae release toxic connections. The coral excerpts and a strong white skeleton, which is referred to as coral bleach, are left behind and the weakened coral consists of dying.
“We may have lost more than 95% of the Elkhorn corals that were on Florida’s reef at the time,” said Baker.
Keri O’Neil, director and senior scientist at the coral protection program of the aquarium said, said some of the corals that were in the Florida aquarium laboratory in 2020.
She said that more fragments from Honduras and Florida will continue to live in the center.
“We hope that every year we can make more and more crosses in the future and continue to find out which parents produce the best descendants,” said O’Neil.
How do you plant the corals on the reef?
The tiny Elkhorn coral fragments were placed on small concrete bases along the reef on Tuesday.
“We arranged them in a certain way that we can compare the performance of every coral,” said Baker.
The team will investigate how the corals that have a Honduran parent with which are from Florida.
“But it is really the future that we and in particular a warming future and a warm summer look at how these corals do and have more thermal tolerance than the local Florida population, because that is exactly the goal of the entire project,” he said.
Baker said it was the most exciting project on which he worked at the University of Miami during his 20 years of work.
Hope for the future
If the corals thrive, it can offer a blueprint for working in the Caribbean to share corals.
“This is a project on international cooperation, about the fact that our environment really has no closed limits, that we can work together to do things in the world better,” said July Berwald, co -founder of Tela Cora. “And it shows that when we talk to each other, when we work together, we can really do something that not only for us, but for the corals and the reefs and all animals that rely on the reefs could not only be for us.”
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Frisaro reported from Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
