Touching healthy corals helps dying ones recover in labs
Stanford researchers found that touching healthy corals to dying ones helps them recover fully within seven weeks in laboratory experiments.
Scientists placed bleached fragments next to identical healthy ones to see if contact would help them regain their vibrant colors and survive the heat stress that caused the damage initially. They found that genetically identical corals recognize each other and fuse their tissues when they touch, creating channels that allow beneficial algae to move between them quickly.
Algae numbers inside the recovering coral doubled every four days during the second week. This rate was ten times faster than what is normally seen in wild populations facing similar environmental pressures today. The rapid growth restored energy supplies for the damaged fragments effectively.
Although this method works well in controlled settings, applying it to entire reefs is impossible. Finding matching healthy clones for every dying coral across vast ocean areas remains impractical for the team. Important questions about adapting the recovery mechanism for broader use still remain.
This discovery offers hope for saving coral reefs that might otherwise disappear due to climate change. It suggests new methods could help reefs survive dangerous marine heat waves long enough for natural processes like growth and breeding. The research gives us hope for the future of ocean restoration.
“Bleached corals are often considered a lost cause because recovery after a heatwave is very slow, if it happens at all”