Friday, 24 July 2020

Red Hot Corals


There has been a lot of gloom about the likely impact of global warming on the survival of corals and their associated organisms around the world. Even small elevations of temperature have produced massed 'bleaching' events, where these colonial animals lose their symbiotic algae on which they partially depend. It may, however, be possible to 'reseed' damaged reefs with temperature-resistant coral species. In experiments, corals from the Gulf of Aqaba in the Red Sea, survived a rise of 7⁰C above a supposedly lethal level (https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/jul/21/heat-resistant-corals-offer-hope-as-climate-crisis-warms-up-oceans). This appears to be yet another example of nature already doing the job for us by selecting organisms that are already capable of dealing with atypical water temperatures.

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