The Florida Aquarium is working with the University of Miami to revive Florida’s coral reefs via genetic research and cross-fertilisation.
The initiative focuses on Tela Bay, off the northern coast of Honduras, where corals are remarkably resilient to disease and extreme temperatures, which typically cause coral bleaching in other parts of the world.
Last month, scientists from the aquarium and the University of Miami travelled to Tela Bay to find new coral parents to breed with Florida corals, ultimately creating coral babies that can tolerate rising ocean temperatures.
The team retrieved about a dozen coral colonies to take back to Florida for genetic testing. Seven of these elkhorn colonies went to the Florida Aquarium’s new Coral Conservation and Research Center in Apollo Beach.
“Transporting reproductively-sized corals internationally is no small undertaking, and we are thrilled that [the University of Miami] has trusted us with this precious cargo,” said Keri O’Neil, director and senior scientist at the Florida Aquarium.
“These corals are a critical step to help us understand heat tolerance in elkhorn corals, to protect genetic diversity from across the population, and to learn how we can breed a stronger generation of elkhorn corals.”
Breeding heat-tolerant corals
After a quarantine period, the Honduran elkhorn corals will be put in an aquarium system designed to promote coral spawning by mimicking environmental cues like sunrise and sunset, moon cycles, and seasonal temperature changes.
It’s hoped the new corals will spawn on the same day as the aquarium’s existing collection of elkhorn corals from Florida, which will allow them to be cross-fertilised.
“We plan to study these corals to understand why they are so resilient, and also try to breed these corals with Florida’s surviving elkhorn corals to produce new baby corals that might be able to survive Florida’s warmer future,” said Andrew Baker, professor of marine biology and ecology at the University of Miami.
Images courtesy of the Florida Aquarium
