Coral transplant raises Barrier Reef survival hopes 

Coral transplant raises Barrier Reef survival hopes 

Context

In an Australian project, Coral bred in one part of the Great Barrier Reef was successfully transplanted into another area, hoping they could restore damaged ecosystems around the world.

The trial

• In a trial at the reef’s Heron Island off Australia’s east coast, the researchers collected large amount of coral spawn and eggs late last year, grew them into larvae and then transplanted them into areas of damaged reef.
• When they returned eight months later, they found juvenile coral that had survived and grown, aided by underwater mesh tanks.

Global significance

• The success of the research not only applies to the Great Barrier Reef but has potential global significance.
• The results are very promising and the work shows that adding higher densities of coral larvae leads to higher numbers of successful coral recruits.

Contrasting approach

• It showcases that one can start to restore and repair damaged coral populations where the natural supply of coral larvae has been compromised.
• Although the larval-restoration approach contrasts with the current “coral gardening” method of breaking up healthy coral and sticking healthy branches on reefs, scientists hope that they will regrow coral in nurseries before transplantation.
• The same approach was earlier successfully trialled in the Philippines in an area of reef highly degraded by blast fishing, which helped reefs recover on a larger scale.
• The Great Barrier Reef is reeling from an unprecedented second-straight year of coral bleaching because of warming sea temperatures linked to climate change.