Caribbean Corals Have a Newly Discovered Tool to Combat Climate Change

Coral reefs may not be in such dire straits as researchers once thought. Scientists have found that corals may be better equipped to tolerate climate change than previously believed.

In order to better understand how reefs respond to climate change, researchers turned to corals in the Caribbean Sea. There, they used a high-resolution molecular screening technique called Real Time-PCR. This revealed that the partnership between Symbiodinium D, a symbiotic algae associated with resistance to coral bleaching, and Caribbean corals is more common than previously thought.

"Corals rely on a relationship with algae in order to get energy via photosynthesis," said Emma Kennedy, one of the researchers, in a news release. "However, under stressful conditions such as increased temperatures, this relationship can be disrupted, resulting in a loss of the algae in an event known as bleaching. In an extreme event, this can lead to coral death."

In this case, the researchers found Symbiodinium D in low abundances at almost every location that the researchers tested: from Tobago to the Bahamas. In addition to being geographically widespread, Symbiodinium D was also more common in dividuals, and found on average in more than 30 percent of the corals in each location.

"Our study focused on populations of the Mountain Star coral, Orbicella annularis, a widespread and prominent reef species in the Caribbean," said Kennedy. "Understanding its ability to weather the pressures of a changing climate, in particular rising sea temperatures, is a key question for conservations."

The findings reveal that there may be hope for corals yet. It turns out that they have a way to resist some of the effects of warming. This will be important to take into account in the future.

The findings are published in the journal Coral Reefs.

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