See full version: Saving Atlantis
All water winds up in the ocean, and pollution drives much of the damage to reefs. And runoff is what carries nutrients and contaminants into the sea. Even if you live thousands of miles away from the coast, the water you use can eventually find its way to a reef. Using less water can help minimize these impacts. You'll also save money and make an immediate impact on your local rivers, coastline, and lakes. more
Here are some specific actions you can take: [links]
The impact of development projects on coral reef ecosystems is wide ranging and difficult to quantify. Solving these problems require research and voting with your economic decisions. And when you hear about development projects, like the dredging of the shipping channel near Bocachica, Colombia that was portrayed in the film, help to spread the word. By doing research, speaking out and making informed choices when you visit tropical reefs, you can make a big impact
Helping coral reefs doesn't have to be complicated. By following basic sustainability practices can make a big impact. In the Oregon State community, we have some fantastic resources that make OSU a leader in sustainability, including the Sustainability at OSU program and the Student Sustainability Initiative. here
Actions taken thousands of miles away can affect what happens on reefs. Use this guide to shape a plan that will limit your impact on distant corals, and you'll also save money and resources and make your local community better in the process.
To assess the damage to the Reef, he worked with a team of reef experts, including another highly experienced marine biologist, Professor Maria Byrne. Collectively they documented the reef destruction and found that the 2016 event was the worst on record, devastating about two-thirds of the coral along a 700 kilometre stretch of the Great Barrier Reef, north of Port Douglas. Previously beautiful and abundant parts of the Reef had become wastelands. more
The technology is in place and the 3D-printed reef has been tested for resilience in reef environments. So far, the team has mapped about 14.5 hectares of reef and established a library of 40 models of coral. This mapping has helped form a basis of understanding of how to restore these reefs and now Figueira hopes to plant some of the reefs on the Great Barrier Reef this year. The pilot program would cost about $150,000, and more funding would allow the rehabilitation of more reefs. [links]
On the frontline of the battle to save the Reef is Associate Professor Will Figueira. “I personally was stunned by the eerie vision of reefs with white corals popping out everywhere that we saw when we jumped in for our first field work dive,” he says with concern. “It was much more extensive than I had imagined.”
Now our researchers are looking at ways to protect the Reef, and they’re using 3D mapping and printing to do it. here
“Although we are not sure we saw convincing loss of fluorescence, DNA sequencing showed us that we were able to molecularly target both the red and the green fluorescent protein genes,” Cleves said. This showed the researchers that, in one go, CRISPR could successfully alter multiple genes if the two were similar enough — a boon to genetic manipulation, as genes are often duplicated during evolution. [links]
“We want to use CRISPR-Cas9 with the express interest to start understanding what genes are critical to coral biology,” Cleves said. more
“We hope that future experiments using CRISPR-Cas9 will help us develop a better understanding of basic coral biology that we then can apply to predict — and perhaps ameliorate — what’s going to happen in the future due to a changing climate,” Cleves said. more
“This is an all-hands-on-deck moment,” he said. “If we can start classifying what genes are important, then we can get an idea of what we can do to help conservation, or even just to predict what's going to happen in the future. And I think that makes this a really exciting time to be a basic biologist looking at the genetics of coral.”
The scientists found, for what appears to be the first time, definitive evidence that the CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing tool could be a potent resource for coral biologists. Phillip Cleves, PhD, a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford, is a geneticist whose efforts to delineate gene function in animals resides squarely within the marine invertebrate realm — namely, corals.
At some volcanic vents and submarine springs, for example, where CO2 bubbles naturally from the seafloor, corals form viable calcium-carbonate skeletons in water that’s acidic enough to be lethal to corals elsewhere. In American Samoa and in Palau, Stanford’s Palumbi and his colleagues have identified shallow-water corals with exceptional tolerance for heat, and they’ve also identified some of the genes that are responsible. here
Nevertheless, Suggett describes himself as a “pragmatic optimist” about the future. The great wild card, he points out, is the extent to which corals themselves are capable of adapting to the changes coming at them. [links]
“What we’re trying to do with this work is understand what would happen in a situation where we had to rely on human intervention in order to keep reefs viable,” Suggett says. “That’s not what we want, of course. Plan A is to reduce emissions, solve climate change and take away the threat to reefs. But we have to prepare for the possibility of Plan F—dealing with global reef meltdown.
On the Great Barrier Reef, that process has begun.
That jibes with an observation by Palumbi’s team. The Stanford researchers found that the heat-tolerance genes they identified in corals in American Samoa are also present in corals in the cooler waters of the Cook Islands, 800 miles southeast. Researcher Rachael Bray, now at the University of California at Davis, found that these genes are rare in the Cook Islands today, but could spread as the waters warm.