Scientists Cryo-Freeze Coral Reef

An anonymous reader writes "Due to rising ocean temperatures, scientists from the United States and Australia are attempting to freeze coral eggs and sperm in cryogenic suspension so that the endangered species can be preserved. Once frozen, the species may later be grown in a lab and implanted in reefs. This could be the only way to ensure the survival of certain endangered species at The Great Barrier Reef."

Comments

Too late :(

[ihaveamo]

I live near the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. It's bleached. Dead. Its one of the saddest things I have ever seen. Lots of tourists coming over asking where the "colorful" reef is, like in the brochure. I reply "oh, like in the 80's? Your 30 years too late". If you want proof of global warming / ocean acidification, look no further.

Well maybe not too late, but just in time.

Re:Too late :(

[ckhorne]

As both an underwater photographer and a reef keeping hobbyist, I'd have to refute your claim. When you dive, your brain fills in the missing reds, yellows, etc - you don't notice the lack of color underwater near as much as you think you would. You definitely notice bleaching however - the coral is stark white at first, and then then becomes brown or green with algae.

It's certainly true that underwater strobes provide fill light to corals in exactly the same way that a studio photographer will use strobes to light his model. However, if the colors aren't there to begin with, they're not going to be magically created by the strobes.

In the end, the grandparent poster was correct- either the picture was from years ago or the photo may have been taken from a different part of the world.

A better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

This could be the only way to ensure the survival of certain endangered species...

Or, you know, we could clean up our act and treat the earth better. I'm pretty sure that one of the species that is going to be endangered is us if we don't.

Re:Coral sperm?

[Nursie]

I can see three views here:

• Optimistic view - once we've sorted ourselves out, stopped acidifying and warming the sea, we can reintroduce them
• Pessimistic/interfering view - we can re-seed currently cooler waters later
• Klepto-biologist view - let's just keep hold of everything in case we need it later

Re:Coral sperm?

[xelah]

What happened to natural selection? The planet constantly changes, and species die all the time, if ocean temperatures are going to kill them off how do they expect them to survive in a warmer ocean!!

Natural selection is still there. But natural selection is a process, not a goal or a reason or a definition of what ought to happen. Yes, species die all the time, but that's not a good reason not to try to preserve them, even if they can never be re-established in the wild.

I didn't think it was ocean temperatures which were the problem for coral (if so, there must be cooler oceans somewhere), I thought it was ocean chemistry and pH? From what I remember of a lecture on that given by someone studying it, higher CO2 acidifies oceans but this also increases erosion rates on-land, washing more calcium-laden water in to the oceans.....and the past CO2 rises were slow enough to keep ocean chemistry much more balanced, whereas the current one is not.

Maybe I am getting ahead of myself with what there overall plan really is. I am sure there is a detailed plan, even another press article out there.

I wouldn't personally trust a journalist an inch to get across a balanced view of the motivation of even a single scientist, never mind the reasons for doing something. In any case, I can't see why there should be a specific plan. An obvious reason for wanting to preserve and grow these things in captivity is for future research, which could have unknown benefits or at the very least merely be interesting. And if a reason arises, isn't it better to have some stored coral available, providing it's at reasonable cost? Of course, if you want a 'plan' then how about genetically engineering or selecting and breeding coral to be more tolerant of different conditions?

IANACS, so could someone explain?

[argStyopa]

Aren't corals one of the oldest lifeforms on the planet? As far as I recall, they've survived at least a couple of the 'great extinctions' - so as a widespread species they're at least 200 million years old. I know they're found abundantly in fossils at least 100 million years old.

And within that last 200 million years, the earth has been (both) substantially warmer and colder for long periods of time, as well as strikingly quick changes of several degrees in both directions (fast enough to appear as 'instant' in a climatological scale - otherwise comparable to the current shift). So clearly they can survive both large and quick changes.

So how is it that they're so desperately endangered? Is it that "corals" are at risk (as the news stories say) or is it that THESE corals are at risk but there are other places that were formerly unfavorable to corals that are now optimal?

I am not a coral scientist, so if someone could explain, that would be great.

Re:Holy fuck.

[rednip]

It should be noted that at one point, it was commonplace to throw your personal waste into the street. I'm sure that there were plenty who thought that the taxes levied for building sewers were an injustice too.