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ABOUT 17 HOURS AGO · By Burt Lum 2

Civil Geeks: A PromisingApproach To Creating ‘SuperCorals’“We can assist the evolution of coral,” says the director of the Hawaii Institute ofMarine Biology.

In late 2015 the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared that we are

in the third global coral bleaching event. The previous global coral bleaching event

occurred in 2010, due to ocean warming triggered by El Niño.

This latest coral bleaching already has been deemed the longest on record, affecting

not only reefs in Hawaii but also in the Caribbean, Puerto Rico, Kiribati and potentially

the Republic of the Marshall Islands, among other places.

In Australia alone, some scientists estimate that 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) of the

Great Barrier Reef face a major bleaching event. Bleaching occurs when stressed corals

eject the symbiotic micro-algae they rely on for nutrition. An extended event can kill the

coral. If you factor in ocean acidification due to the the increase of atmospheric carbon

dioxide, these additional stresses are catastrophic to corals.

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One person who recognized and felt compelled to do something about this growing

threat: Dr. Ruth Gates, director of the University of Hawaii’s Hawaii Institute of Marine

Biology, located on Moku o Lo‘e, also known as Coconut Island, in Kaneohe Bay.

For the last 25 years Gates has been studying coral reefs. In 2013, she and her team

from Hawaii, along with Dr. Madeleine van Oppen from the Australian Institute of Marine

Science, were awarded $10,000 by the Paul G. Allen Ocean Challenge. They were

among a select group of finalists to submit proposals to address the environmental

impacts of ocean acidification.

Then, in 2015, Gates and her team were awarded $4 million by the Paul G. Allen Family

Corals on a patch of reef in Kaneohe Bay, during a temperature-induced bleaching event in 2014,show the variation in the health of members of the same coral species (Porites compressa)growing side by side. One colony is completely bleached white, while the adjacent one is darkbrown and healthy.

Raphael Ritson-Williams

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Foundation to discover ways coral can become more resilient in the rapidly changing

coastal environments. Their goal was to build a toolkit of ways corals would have a

fighting chance against the warming and acidification of the ocean. 

“Corals are in decline,” said Gates. “And that decline seems to be outpacing the intrinsic

capacity for the system to respond and adapt. So what we are doing is accelerating the

rate at which corals do things naturally. Based on what we know, we can assist the

evolution of coral. This is what we call assisted evolution.”

Closeup view showing the anatomy of a coral (Pocillopora damicornis). The red is the millions of

Amy Eggers

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Corals are complex organisms. Reef building corals have a symbiotic relationship with

photosynthesizing micro-algae that live inside the coral’s tissues. In this relationship, the

coral provides a protected environment; and in return, the micro-algae

use photosynthesis to provide the coral with food and oxygen.

When corals get stressed, the relationship between the coral and its micro-algal

symbiont goes out of equilibrium, causing the the coral to starve and turn that

distinctive white color. Global conditions such as climate change and El Niño are

causing ocean waters to rise in temperature, throwing the coral’s sensitive equilibrium

out of balance.

You can observe that right here in Kaneohe Bay, where the corals have been stressed

due to warming temperatures, raw sewage effluent, over fishing and sediment runoff.

Despite these effects, you will still find healthy corals right next to ones that are

bleached and dead. Gates observed that in many cases, some reefs do better than

others. Just within Kaneohe Bay there is an enormous variation in the response within

individual species of coral.

With the Paul Allen grant, Gates and her team are taking a bold approach to maximize

on the strengths of the corals that exhibit the most resilience to these stresses. Some

corals and their micro-algal symbionts are stronger than others. Gates aims to explore

three areas:

• Induced acclimatization: This strategy intentionally subjects corals to stress levels to

see if they can become more resistance to change. By applying repeated variations in

temperature, the corals could build up their stamina and be better equipped to survive

warming trends in the wild.

• Selective breeding: In this approach, corals that have survived a bleaching event are

bred to perpetuate their  genes, in the hope that these corals’ genetic makeup may

enable them to survive warmer temperatures and more acidic waters. These samples

are bred to see if the resilient traits are carried forward to the offspring.

micro algae inside the animal tissues; the blue are batteries of stinging cells callednematocysts;and the green is a protein found in the coral animal tissue. The living coral isvisualized using a scanning laser confocal microscope under UV light.

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• Modification of symbionts: This idea focuses on studying the micro-algal symbionts

and to promote the survival of the coral by determining which algae feed their hosts

better or which are more temperature tolerant. By combining symbionts with coral

hosts, experiments could show whether symbionts with particular traits can help the

coral survive more readily.

The project is relying, in effect, on selective breeding. It has drawn little scientific

criticism. Some scientists have said we should leave the corals to cope naturally. But

Gates argues that we have already lost 30 percent of the world’s reefs, and that the

negative effects of warming and climate change are harming the reefs faster than they

can recover on their own.

The goal of the five-year project is to develop a toolkit of what works and what doesn’t

The Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, part of the University of Hawaii, is located on Moku o Lo‘e,or Coconut Island, in Kaneohe Bay.

Joshua Levy

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work. Gates emphasized that they are in a proof-of-concept phase and aren’t anywhere

near implementing any coral restoration.

“We have nothing to lose by doing the proof of concept,” Gates said. “The question of

whether we implement restoration projects using these corals is a conversation we

need to develop over time. We need to understand how we might implement and

design projects in collaboration with a much broader group of people.”

“We are not at the time when we are thinking of how to use them (corals). We are at the

time when we are deciding whether we can do it. Even if we are able to mitigate fossil

fuel burning and start to protect coral in their place, we need to somehow stop and

stabilize the downward trajectory and get the system to naturally reinvigorate.”

“But in lieu of that happening, to do nothing at this point is too risky, and will have

adverse effects on the billions of dollars of economic value associated with the reef

resources. And honestly, from the point of view of a researcher conducting basic

science, if we fail at this experiment that’s okay. At least we tried.”

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Burt Lum Burt Lum is a communicator, innovator, community builder, open data advocate,and sci/tech geek. He is the Executive Director of Hawaii Open Data, co-hostsBytemarks Cafe on Hawaii Public Radio and the Geek Beat on Hawaii News Now.

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