First genetically engineered coral created to help save reefs from climate change

New technique holds promise for understanding genes that protect corals from rising temperatures

Josh Gabbatiss Science Correspondent 

The Independent Online

Genetically engineered coral has been created by a team at America’s prestigious Stanford University, in a project they hope will serve as a “blueprint” for future coral conservation.

For the first time, researchers were able to apply a unique tool called CRISPR-Cas9 to edit coral genes. 

In the future they hope to identify genes involved in coral survival, especially those that help them tolerate the rising temperatures that have led to catastrophic reef “die-offs”.

While scientists have emphasised that genetically enhanced “super-corals” are still a long way from becoming reality, this work is still thought to hold great promise for coral protection.

“We hope that future experiments using CRISPR-Cas9 will help us develop a better understanding of basic coral biology that we then can apply to predict – and perhaps ameliorate – what’s going to happen in the future due to a changing climate,” explained Dr Phillip Cleve, a geneticist and the lead author of the new study.

CRISPR-Cas9 has become the biologist’s go-to gene-editing tool in recent years, but it has proved difficult to apply it to corals due to the way they reproduce.

Continued  

New hermit crab uses live coral as its home

Crab substitutes for marine worm in symbiotic partnership with walking coral

Date:  September 21, 2017

Source:  PLOS

A new hermit crab species can live in a walking coral's cavity in a reciprocal relationship, replacing the usual marine worm partner, according to a study published September 20, 2017 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Momoko Igawa and Makoto Kato from Kyoto University, Japan.

Continued  

Newly discovered glowing corals could have medical uses

June 24, 2015

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – @BednarChuck

An international team of researchers has discovered a colorful array of glowing corals in deep water reefs located in the Red Sea, and their efforts could make it possible for these pigments to be developed into new imaging tools for use in biomedical applications.

View the video of the rainbow corals here.

Scientists from the University of Southampton in the UK, the Interuniversity Institute for Marine Sciences (IUI) and Tel Aviv University in Israel, and collaborators from other parts of the world studied corals at depths of more than 50 meters. They found that many glow brightly in an array of different fluorescent colors, ranging from green to yellow to red.

The discovery of these colorful corals in such deep water was unexpected; the researchers said in a statement, as coral found in shallow waters in the same reef were just green fluorescent pigments. Their findings have been published online in the journal PLOS One.

Read more at

New coral species discovered off the coast of California

Scientists on a mission led by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have made new discovers in waters off California’s coast, including a new species of deep sea coral and a nursery area used by both catsharks and skates. 

The research was a result of the first intensive exploration of the areas north of Bodega Head, which took place in September 2014 aboard NOAA’s R/V Fulmar. The team of scientists focused on two main sites: the head waters of Bodega Canyon, and an area known as ‘the Football’ west of Salmon Creek and north of the canyon, so-named for its oval shape. 

While investigating in these areas, the researchers discovered a new species of deep sea coral, and a nursery area for both catsharks and skates located in the underwater canyons close to the Gulf of Farallones and Cordell Bank national marine sanctuaries off Sonoma coast. 

Continued ...

Coral and fish can 'smell' bad reefs

22 August 2014 Last updated at 00:44

By Jonathan WebbScience reporter, BBC News

Baby corals and fish can smell the difference between good and bad reefs, according to a study based in Fiji.

When offered a choice of two water samples in the lab, the animals turned away from the stench of seaweed that invades depleted reefs, but were drawn to the smell of healthy coral.

It is the first time that corals have been shown to react over long distances to chemical "smells" in the water.

The findings suggest that controlling seaweed is key to repopulating reefs.

Once a coral reef has decayed and seaweed takes over, stopping fishing in the area may not be enough to bring the coral back.

"If you're setting up a marine protected area to seed recruitment into a degraded habitat, that recruitment may not happen if young fish and coral are not recognizing the degraded area as habitat," said Dr Danielle Dixson from the Georgia Institute of Technology, the study's first author.

Continued ....

Corals need more parrotfish to survive

A decline in parrotfish and sea urchin numbers is a bigger cause of Caribbean coral loss than global warming, a new report suggests, and by increasing these populations the reefs have a chance of recovery.

The corals have declined by more than 50 per cent since the 1970s and only about one-sixth of their original coral cover remain.

These species are the area’s two main grazers and the loss of them breaks the delicate eco-balance of corals and allows algae, on which they feed, to smother the reefs.

“The rate at which the Caribbean corals have been declining is truly alarming,” says Carl Gustaf Lundin, Director of IUCN’s Global Marine and Polar Programme.

“But this study brings some very encouraging news: the fate of Caribbean corals is not beyond our control and there are some very concrete steps that we can take to help them recover.”

Continued

Corals use multiple tricks to adapt to hotter seas

Genes and physiological acclimation contribute equally to heat resistance.

Amanda Mascarelli

24 April 2014

The reefs of Ofu Island in American Samoa are a natural laboratory for studies of coral heat resistance.

Coral reefs face a daunting future: climate change, ocean acidification, and overfishing are projected to take a harsh toll in the coming decades. But a study published today suggests that some corals can adjust their physiology to cope with ocean warming.

A population of the table-top coral Acropora hyacinthus living in a back-reef lagoon off Ofu Island in American Samoa can acclimate to hot water temperatures — at least up to a point, researchers report today inScience1. The team teased apart the role of genetic adaptation (natural selection that occurs within a population) and physiological acclimatization (which occurs in individuals), showing that each had roughly equal roles in the corals’ heat resistance.

In the past few decades, reef-building corals have seen global declines owing to bleaching — discoloration that results when corals lose the photosynthetic algae that nourish them — caused by local warming spells.

The study suggests that “corals can buy more time to evolve the necessary adaptations by using acclimatization as a first line of response,” says Christian Voolstra, a coral reef genomicist at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Thuwal, Saudi Arabia, who was not involved in the research. But the degree to which the findings apply to other coral species and coral reef ecosystems still needs to be determined, he adds.

Continued

Devil in disguise: Small coral-eating worm may mean big trouble for reefs

Date:

April 11, 2014

Source:

University of Southampton

Summary:

A coral-eating flatworm has been identified as a potential threat for coral reefs. It is barely possible to see the parasitic worm Amakusaplana acroporae when it sits on its favorite hosts, the staghorn coral Acropora, thanks to its excellent camouflage. However, the researchers found that the small flatworm could cause significant damage to coral reefs.

Continued

Whitsand Bay rare coral 'at risk from dredging'

Environmental campaigners are calling for immediate action to protect coral found off the coast near Plymouth.

They say thousands of tonnes of silt dredged from Devonport Dockyard is at risk of overwhelming rare pink sea-fans in Whitsand Bay.

Silt dredged from the River Tamar to clear channels for warships at Devonport docks in Plymouth is dumped in the bay.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) says the dredging is essential.

Millions of tonnes of silt has been dumped off Rame Head in Whitsand Bay over the years.

A new application has been lodged by Ministry of Defence contractors for a two-year licence to deposit up to 337,000 tonnes of silt at the dump site.

Read more

A last chance to save Australia’s Great Barrier Reef: Scientists launch audacious plan to create ‘fertility clinic’ to breed endangered coral

The spring spawning of coral on the Great Barrier Reef is a grand affair, with vast expanses of the Pacific Ocean turning red as millions of sperm and eggs are released, in a spectacle that is visible from space.

Last month, divers and snorkellers marvelling at the event were joined by scientists with a deadly serious purpose: to harvest billions of sperm and eggs, and then freeze them, in an effort to save corals in the World Heritage-listed reef from extinction.

The world’s largest living organism has shrunk by about half over the past 30 years as a result of climate change, ocean acidification, pollution and crown-of-thorns starfish, which prey on coral.

Continued

Fish 'Bodyguards' Protect Coral from Seaweed Attack

When one kind of coral is under attack from killer seaweed, it sends chemical signals to little fish "bodyguards" that come to its rescue and handily take care of the problem, new research shows.

In their experiments, a group of scientists exposed sets of a rapidly growing coral from around Fiji (Acropora nasuta), to filaments of the seaweed species Chlorodesmis fastigiata, which is chemically toxic to corals. Some corals in the study were occupied by one-inch fish called gobies, which, within minutes, would begin neatly biting away at the offending seaweed.

"These little fish would come out and mow the seaweed off so it didn't touch the coral," study researcher Mark Hay, a biologist at the Georgia Institute of Technology, said in a statement. "This takes place very rapidly, which means it must be very important to both the coral and the fish. The coral releases a chemical and the fish respond right away."

Read on: http://www.livescience.com/24662-fish-bodyguards-protect-coral-from-seaweed-attack.html