Bay Area scientists helping restore coral reefs damaged by climate change
Inside Steinhart Aquarium at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, visitors can feast their eyes on the deepest display of living coral in the world.
But worldwide, the situation is quite another story. Many of these vibrantly colored colonies of these marine invertebrates have now turned ghostly white.
"It literally looks like you've taken that animal and dipped it in bleach," said coral expert Dr. Rebecca Albright of Cal Academy.
The devastating event is known as coral bleaching. A major culprit is climate change.
"Because of climate change, the water is warming up, it's getting hotter, and it stresses out these organisms," explained Albright.
Coral reefs are critical. They protect our coastlines, bring in local tourism, and provide a home for a third of the ocean's biodiversity. A newly published report found that 84% of all coral reefs, which are the most biodiverse ecosystems in the oceans, are now impacted.
When stressed by heat, the coral expels algae, which it uses for food and energy and which colors it. The coral then starves, becomes susceptible to disease, and eventually dies.
"If we lose coral reefs, we lose about 30% of all life in all oceans," noted Albright, founder of the Coral Regeneration Lab at Cal Academy. Her lab is the first in the United States to successfully spawn coral to regenerate the reefs.
"Our focus is on sexual reproduction. That's the way we get new genetic diversity and new opportunities to survive in the wild," Albright said.
Bay Area scientists are testing some heat-tolerant species and have adopted techniques to mimic Mother Nature and trigger spawning, when a colony releases thousands of tiny packets of eggs and sperm.
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.
In partnership with Roatan Marine Park in Honduras, the researchers have built the first coral rearing facility in Central America, and they hope to restore some of Roatan's damaged reefs.
Once the site was inaugurated, the expertise came in handy. 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. For Albright, it's a labor of love.
"These are ecosystems that captured my heart at a very young age. I'm a mom," Albright said. "I want my kids to be able to see them."