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SYDNEY • Scientists have launched the largest attempt at coral regeneration on the Great Barrier Reef, an endangered species, by harvesting millions of eggs and sperm during their annual spawning.
The researchers announced yesterday that they were planning to grow coral larvae from the harvested eggs and return them to areas of the reef severely damaged by climate-related coral bleaching.
"This is the first time that the entire large-scale breeding and larval settlement process is undertaken directly on the reefs of the Great Barrier Reef," said Professor Peter Harrison. from Southern Cross University, one of the project leaders.
"Our team will restore hundreds of square meters in order to reach square kilometers in the future, a scale never tried before," he said in a statement.
The launch of the "Larval Restoration Project" was planned to coincide with annual coral reef deposition, which began earlier this week and will last only 48 to 72 hours.
Corals along large swaths of the 2,300 km reef have been killed by rising sea temperatures due to climate change, leaving behind skeletal remains in a process called coral bleaching.
Professor Harrison warned that the reseeding project will not be enough to save the reef. "Climate action is the only way to ensure the survival of coral reefs," he said.
The researchers, who also include experts from James Cook University and the Sydney University of Technology (UTS), said one novelty of their reseeding project was to grow larvae coral with microscopic algae. Both live in symbiosis on the reef.
In Indonesia, more than a third of coral reefs are in bad shape, scientists said Tuesday from the Indonesian Institute of Science. The precarious state of coral reefs was revealed after a survey of 1067 sites spread across the vast country of more than 17,000 islands.
FRANCE MEDIA AGENCY
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