Australia's Coral Reefs: On The Way To Recovery?

Australia's many coral reefs had had a rough year, with the protected site reported to have been damaged by rising temperatures just this April. In fact, reports said that about 93 percent of the reef had been bleached extensively for the first time.

The good news is that a follow-up study of the Sydney Coral found that nearly all the coral in the area is showing signs of recovery just a few months after the incident. Samantha Goyen of the University of Technology, Sydney, one of the researchers regarding the incident said in a statement, "Up to 45 percent of corals at selected sites were bleached in April, which was unprecedented this far south of the tropics. However, as of now, almost every single coral we tracked is showing signs of recovery."

In an explanation earlier this year, Fiona MacDonald, director of Content at Science Alert said, that corals usually get their vibrant color from the tiny algae that live in their tissue and provide them food in return. "But when water temperatures get too warm, the corals become stressed and eject the algae, which turns the coral bone white and also leaves them starving and vulnerable to destruction."

The longer the algae is gone from the coral, the less likely they are to survive -- which is to say that bleaching is a symptom of a coral struggling to live. However, it seems that there are signs of recovery in the Sydney Harbour corals as the waters return to normal temperatures.

Unfortunately, not the same can be said about the Great Barrier Reef. Although some of the coral had been repairing itself, over 30 percent is already dead or dying, leading researchers to believe that the Sydney coral might be more handy.

Today, researchers are looking into long-term experiments regarding the corals and see how they can recover over greater periods of time.