Can Lab-Grown Coral Restore Reefs Damaged By Climate Change? (cbsnews.com) 40
Many coral reefs "have now turned ghostly white," reports CBS News — and "a major culprit is climate change."
SFGate adds that more than 50% of the world's coral reefs have been lost, mostly over the past 10 years, according to coral reef scientist Rebecca Albright at the California Academy of Sciences. "If changes aren't made soon, 90% to 99% of the coral reefs that are remaining could be deteriorated by 2050, Albright said..."
But CBS News notes that Albright's lab is the first in America to successfully spawn coral to regenerate the reefs: The lab is mastering the art and science of creating baby corals, and the scientists have brought their expertise into the wild. The location: the second-largest reef in the world, known as the Mesoamerican Reef, stretching some 700 miles along the coasts of Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras... Armed with test tubes, the scientists quickly dove into the water and collected the tiny packets of gametes. Back on land, the eggs were fertilized, incubated, and then brought back into the wild. "Then we planted over 3,000 baby corals back to the reef," explained Albright. The baby corals are now two months old. The Roatan staff will dive in a few months to see how many survived.
Scientists are worried because bleaching events "are becoming more common," notes SFGate, "happening more frequently and affecting more parts of the world... The most current event was confirmed on April 15, 2024, and is still ongoing, impacting approximately 84% of the world's coral reefs as of August 31.
"It has been documented in at least 83 countries and territories."
SFGate adds that more than 50% of the world's coral reefs have been lost, mostly over the past 10 years, according to coral reef scientist Rebecca Albright at the California Academy of Sciences. "If changes aren't made soon, 90% to 99% of the coral reefs that are remaining could be deteriorated by 2050, Albright said..."
But CBS News notes that Albright's lab is the first in America to successfully spawn coral to regenerate the reefs: The lab is mastering the art and science of creating baby corals, and the scientists have brought their expertise into the wild. The location: the second-largest reef in the world, known as the Mesoamerican Reef, stretching some 700 miles along the coasts of Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras... Armed with test tubes, the scientists quickly dove into the water and collected the tiny packets of gametes. Back on land, the eggs were fertilized, incubated, and then brought back into the wild. "Then we planted over 3,000 baby corals back to the reef," explained Albright. The baby corals are now two months old. The Roatan staff will dive in a few months to see how many survived.
Scientists are worried because bleaching events "are becoming more common," notes SFGate, "happening more frequently and affecting more parts of the world... The most current event was confirmed on April 15, 2024, and is still ongoing, impacting approximately 84% of the world's coral reefs as of August 31.
"It has been documented in at least 83 countries and territories."
Fish secretion /s (Score:2)
Bleaching bone like skeletons of coral...... /s /s /humor
https://www.smithsonianmag.com... [smithsonianmag.com]
Smithsonian Magazine Aug 20, 2013
From Gunpowder to Teeth Whitener: The Science Behind Historic Uses of Urine - Preindustrial workers built huge industries based on the liquid’s cleaning power and corrosiveness—and the staler the pee, the better
The article is missing the most newsworthy aspect (Score:5, Informative)
This is why "lab-grown" corals are an interesting new attempt for restoration.
Re: (Score:1)
The bleaching of a coral reef is cyclic, it's not a permanent destruction. This link is a few years old but it shows that some subject matter experts are seeing recovery from past bleaching events.
https://www.aims.gov.au/inform... [aims.gov.au]
While global warming could be an issue the larger coral reefs took thousands, perhaps millions, of years to form as we see them today. It would appear they are quite durable and survived very wide swings in changes to their local climate. I'm a bit concerned on having people int
Re: (Score:2)
It's a cunning business plan. If it goes through and in a while it's found that the reefs are actually flourishing - it will be thanks to the clever American scientists! If not, it will be blamed on global warming.
Incidentally, do those people have any legal right to interfere with coral reefs along "...the coasts of Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras..."?
Last I heard, the Great Barrier Reef was thriving. Maybe that's why the focus is moving elsewhere.
Re: (Score:3)
Thanks for your valuable and well-documented contribution, and for your exemplary courtesy. Of course the opinion of a well-known celebrity such as yourself is quite decisive.
However, the following report shows that your opinions are wrong.
https://www.aims.gov.au/sites/... [aims.gov.au]
Re: (Score:2)
Did you intentionally post an old report to make your case? Firstly not only is your report showing that bleaching is an ongoing problem, that crown of thorns are an ongoing problem, and that there's only minor hard coral growth. You can't look at a picture, you actually have to understand what it is about and read the report.
But leaving that aside the actual *current* report shows every metric is down https://www.aims.gov.au/sites/... [aims.gov.au] except for COTS, but that is largely due to the insane amount of effort
Re: (Score:2)
The Great Barrier Reef reach peak highs in 2022-2024 since its yearly measuring from 1986.
2025 is ONLY the 5th highest year.
Page 7 of the report you posted.
All the doom and gloom reduction numbers only compare 2024 (the peak) to 2025.
This goes for the Central and Northern reefs, only the south is pretty much flat since 1986.
If you take all 3 and average them out, 2022-2024 peak and 2025 4th highest since 86 holds.
Re: (Score:2)
https://www.aims.gov.au/sites/... [aims.gov.au]
"The prognosis for the future disturbance regime under climate change is one of increasingly frequent and longer lasting marine heatwaves. The consequences of climate change are evidenced by multiple mass coral bleaching events since 2016 in the three GBR regions. Such bleaching events were rare prior to the late 1990s but have become a biennial occurrence in the last decade. Simultaneously, the continuing risk of tropical cyclones and crown-of-thorns starfish outbreaks, and
Re: (Score:2)
Your own linkn shows 2024 as peak for Central and Northen reefs since 1986...
Re: (Score:2)
> Your own linkn shows
I used the same link as Archtech and I posted the conclusion of that report in response to Archtech, because after reading just his comment one could think the GBR was doing just fine. But as the report's conclusion states that's not justified, at least partly because health indicators other than 'hard coral cover, like frequency and severity of bleaching events and of crown-of-thorn outbreaks, need to also be considered.
> shows 2024 as peak for Central and Northen reefs since 19
Re: (Score:2)
Last I heard, the Great Barrier Reef was thriving.
You last heard wrong. The Great Barrier Reef is surviving, and that is largely due to human intervention trying to keep it alive as Crown of Thorns devastate areas that don't get bleached. There's an active effort underway to try and ensure the reef survives its next summer (bleaching is predominantly a summer event).
You're being lied to or you are seeking out lies. Whatever the case may be no one with any authority or knowledge of the matter claims the reef is thriving.
Re: (Score:2)
Last I heard, the Great Barrier Reef was thriving. Maybe that's why the focus is moving elsewhere.
The Great Barrier Reef can be called resilient. Whether it's thriving or not depends on the timing of the sample. 2024 saw the latest mass bleaching event. Prior to that, much of the reef had recovered from the prior mass bleaching event. Fortunately and unfortunately, much of the reef is comprised of acropora, which grows rapidly but is also extremely sensitive to temperature and therefore dies quickly during bleaching events.
In any case, it's obvious that the Great Barrier Reef mass bleaching problem
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The bleaching of a coral reef is cyclic, it's not a permanent destruction.
And summer is cyclic so global warming isn't a thing either right? No that article covers the periodic bleaching and recovery, but fails to mention that those periodic bleaching events are getting worse and worse.
5th paragraph down:
Despite this year’s good news, the trend is clear, and the next major bleaching event is only ever a summer away. All the planet’s coral reefs face the same threat. If global emissions are not brought under control, and quickly, the vast majority of reefs around the w
Re: (Score:1)
And summer is cyclic so global warming isn't a thing either right?
Um, no. I've become tired of the debate over global warming, instead I prefer to assume global warming is a problem and ask to move the discussion to solutions.
No that article covers the periodic bleaching and recovery, but fails to mention that those periodic bleaching events are getting worse and worse.
The article does state that the problem is getting worse. The number of reefs in poor condition is reportedly increasing.
And, despite another widespread bleaching event in 2020, our monitoring report for 2021 shows that from north to south, corals are starting to recover. This welcome news reflects the relatively benign conditions the reef experienced last summer. But even though the GBR is unquestionably the best-managed reef system in the world â" thanks to significant government investment over the years, and the substantial efforts of farmers, tourism operators, regulators and the public â" the longer-term picture is not so positive. Our 40 years of data clearly show the largest and most diverse reef system in the world is under growing pressure from the combined effects of coral bleaching, outbreaks of coral-eating crown-of-thorns starfish, cyclones and poor water quality. Today, there are still many parts of the reef that remain in excellent condition â" the ecosystem has huge in-built resilience that allows coral to recover when given the chance â" but the number of such reefs has been declining over time. And the number of reefs in poor condition is increasing.
I'm assuming that global warming is happening, and that it is bad. What seems to upset people is that I'm not screaming about global warming like my hair is on fire. I'm a bit tired of every bleaching event getting blamed on hu
Re: (Score:2)
You pretend to believe in climate change, then deny many of the most basic facts about it. What we're witnessing now is not a normal, cyclical behavior. It's an unprecedented event that's rapidly getting worse. From an article [unep.org] from the UN Environment Programme:
Bleaching is not always fatal for corals. If water temperatures cool quickly enough the animals can recover.
The problem: bleachings are lasting longer and coming in rapid-fire succession. This year's is the fourth since 1998 and second in the last decade. It follows a devastating bleaching that stretched from 2014 to 2017 that left about 9 per cent of the world's corals dead.
Repeated bleaching has contributed to an unmistakeable trend: corals are disappearing. Between 2009 and 2018, the world lost 14 per cent of its coral cover, according to a 2020 study from the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network, which is supported by UNEP. ...
Even if the world manages to reach the most ambitious goal of the Paris Agreement on climate change - limiting global temperature rise to 1.5C - 70 per cent to 90 per cent of reef-building corals are expected to die. If temperatures rise 2C, 99 per cent will perish.
You blatantly misrepresent the facts, claiming that if a coral recovers from a bleaching event it somehow proves the event wasn't caused by climate change, and mock the people who say otherwise for "screaming like their hair is on fire." And then
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
>> The bleaching of a coral reef is cyclic, it's not a permanent destruction.
Utter bullshit from MacMann as usual.
Recent bleaching events have destroyed coral in many places and it was even mentioned in the summary; "more than 50% of the coral reefs around the world have been lost, mostly over the past 10 years". I've seen it with my own eyes, vast fields of previously healthy coral that is now completely dead and the structures have crumbled to the sea floor. Thousands of years of growth obliterated
Re: (Score:2)
The Australian data shows 2022-2025 have peak reef highs since 1986 for northern and central reefs.
Only Southern reef is pretty flat over that same period.
So you are wrong it would seem, according to Australian governement data.
https://www.aims.gov.au/sites/... [aims.gov.au]
Re: (Score:2)
>> for northern and central reefs
You are cherrypicking.
"more than 50% of the world's coral reefs have been lost, mostly over the past 10 years"
Re: (Score:2)
No
Read the report linked in almost every single post here from Australia.
Southern reef is FLAT since 1986, with ups and downs in between.
Northern and Central reefs are in the top 4 highest years since 1986.
The most tracked reefs are in Australia, its where we have the best data.
If you take numbers from a few years ago and compare them to 2025, it will seem like we lost 28-35 %, but they where at their peak a few years ago.
Reefs regenerate and go through cycles.
Re: (Score:2)
>> here from Australia
Since when is Australia global? And how are reports from 1986 relevant to the rapid "50%" decline in coral over the past 10 years.
>> Reefs regenerate and go through cycles.
They don't regenerate when they have crumbled to the sea floor with the remains covered in algae. I've seen this myself. Most of the coral from Puerto Rico through the British Virgin Islands is now completely dead.
Re: (Score:2)
The bleaching of a coral reef is cyclic, it's not a permanent destruction.
No, it's not cyclic. It's a symptom of the coral doing badly. It's caused by corals being under stress, and expelling the algae that live in the corals tissue. Currently that stress is usually heat stress from global warming. Rising ocean temperatures caused by climate change is the primary cause of coral bleaching. [barrierreef.org].
This link is a few years old but it shows that some subject matter experts are seeing recovery from past bleaching events.
Yes. Coral can recover from a single bleaching event. However you are mistaken to conclude that therefore it's cyclic. Bleached coral has expelled its algae that it is symbiotic with. If it exte
Re: (Score:2)
Whats the point? (Score:2)
Bad analogy. (Re:Whats the point?) (Score:1)
How bout we fix the issue that's killing them off to begin with? If we just plant new ones won't those die too? Sounds like constantly replanting a farm who's soil has been salted expecting a different result each time instead of 1st removing the salt contaminated soil.
It's a change in temperature that is the problem, hardly something analogous to the earth being salted. It's like a forest management office seeing the average temperature shift and so after the next forest fire (be that fire from natural causes or not) they plant a different tree species than before to aid in recovery.
I'm not seeing anyone claim this solves the problem of global warming, but rather adding resiliency to the coral reef to survive the warming that has already happened and the warming expecte
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, that's exactly the problem. This is really an act of desperation. If bleachings were isolated events, we could plant new corals to help them recover. But they're rapidly getting more severe and more frequent. Before long, any new corals we plant will just die.
Obviously not (Score:3)
It would violate Betteridge's law of headlines with a question mark.
The answer is always 'NO'.
Sure, but ... (Score:2)
Won't a lot of space be taken up by the signs (or stickers) labeling it "lab-grown coral"? :-)
Surely ocean life deserves the right to choose between natural and lab-grown...
Re: (Score:2)
What is to prevent the new coral from dying? (Score:2)
I have always been puzzled by efforts like these to replace dying marine Eco-systems. If you don't fix what caused them to die in the first place or produce through genetic engineering more robust organisms, how can this hope to achieve any long term success?
Re: (Score:1)
They are breeding coral that is more tolerant of higher temperatures.
Not A Soultion (Score:1)
2025 is the 4th highest level of the GBR since '86 (Score:2)
Australia has been measuring the GBR every year since 1986.
2025 is the 4th highest ever. Peak being 2022-2024.
The above "lab grown coral" is litteraly the definition of a solution looking for a problem.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed.