Scientists Track Coral Sex Lives in Mauritius to Create Heat-Resistant Reefs
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📰 The quick summary: A new coral restoration project in Mauritius uses sexual propagation techniques to create more genetically diverse and heat-tolerant reef colonies, potentially saving coral ecosystems threatened by climate change.
📈 One key stat: Around 80% of corals in Mauritian waters were affected by bleaching in March due to record-high ocean temperatures, highlighting the urgent need for effective restoration techniques.
💬 One key quote: “When the corals reproduce, they release millions of gametes that could lead to millions of embryos and millions of coral babies that you can out-plant. This allows us to scale up.“
1️⃣ The big picture: Mauritius is launching one of the Western Indian Ocean’s largest coral restoration projects using sexual propagation methods. Led by US-based nonprofit Secore International in partnership with the Mauritius-based Odysseo Oceanarium, researchers collect coral eggs and sperm during natural spawning events to create genetically diverse baby corals. This approach differs from traditional asexual methods that produce genetically identical fragments and aligns with recent Mauritian government policy. The project comes at a critical time as coral reefs worldwide face unprecedented threats from rising ocean temperatures and acidification, with bleaching affecting about 80% of Mauritian corals just months ago.
2️⃣ Why is this good news: Sexual propagation creates more genetically diverse corals compared to asexual methods, potentially improving their resilience against climate change impacts. Secore has already demonstrated success in the Caribbean, where their lab-bred corals showed better heat tolerance during mass bleaching events than their wild counterparts. Their innovative CRIB (Coral Rearing In-Situ Basin) technology provides a cost-effective method for nurturing coral larvae in protected floating nurseries near collection sites. This scalable approach can produce millions of new corals from a single spawning event, offering hope for maintaining these crucial marine ecosystems that support a quarter of all ocean life.
3️⃣ What’s next: Scientists are currently focused on building knowledge about which coral species spawn and when they reproduce in Mauritian waters. They aim to develop a comprehensive spawning calendar that will enable work across multiple sites. The team hopes to identify additional spawning locations beyond Blue Bay to expand restoration efforts throughout the region.
Read the full story here: Mongabay – In Mauritius, an NGO is tracking the sex life of corals to save them
