As waters off Florida hit abnormally hot temperatures, volunteer divers are rescuing corals to ride out the heat wave in giant tanks on land
The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research.
Marine scientist Ken Nedimyer and his team at Reef Renewal USA moved an entire coral tree nursery from shallow waters off Tavernier to an area 60 feet deep and 2 degrees Fahrenheit cooler. Even there, temperatures were running about 85 to 86 F .The Florida Reef – a nearly 350-mile arc along the Florida Keys that is crucial to fish habitat, coastal storm protection and the local economy – began experiencing record-hot ocean temperatures in June 2023, weeks earlier than expected.
Reef-building corals are the foundation species of shallow tropical waters due to their unique symbiotic relationship with microscopic algae in their tissues. Corals can recover new algal symbionts if water conditions return to normal within a few weeks. However, the increase in global temperatures due to the effects of greenhouse gas emissions from human activities is causing longer and more frequent periods of coral bleaching worldwide, leading to concerns for the future of coral reefs.
Volunteers there and at other labs across Florida will hand-feed the tiny creatures to keep them alive until the Florida waters cool again and they can be returned to the ocean and eventually transplanted onto the reef.I.CARE co-founder Kylie Smith, a coral reef ecologist and a former student of mine in marine sciences, discovered a few years ago that coral transplants with large amounts of fleshy algae around them were more likely to bleach during times of elevated temperature.
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