Australian scientists improve coral reefs with artificial insemination techniques

Australian scientists are working to preserve the largest coral reef area of ​​the Great Barrier Reef (Queensland) using artificial insemination techniques, as is the case with human IVF projects.

Professor Peter Harrison, of Southern Cross University, said the researchers had collected millions of eggs and sperm from the coral reefs during the annual coral reef breeding season in the area. the Great Barrier Reef (GBR).

"This is the largest larval reef restoration project ever attempted in the world," he said.

"It's very interesting, because for the first time, we're going to try to capture millions of eggs and sperm on a large scale when nesting corals. We built an egg and sperm sensor that floated from Moore Reef off Cairns.

Innovative idea

Professor Harrison said scientists would cultivate small corals in floating areas for about a week and that when the larvae were ready, they would be introduced into the most damaged part of the reef.

He added that the process was aimed at repairing the damage caused by mbad laundering in 2016 and 2017.

"In the Great Barrier Reef, we lost more than half of coral growth in two recent bleaching episodes," he said.

"The prospects for reefs around the world will be bleak if we can manage climate change.

"We've lost so many coral reefs that fewer corals have spawned fish and the fertilization rate will be lower and billions of coral larvae will have to be replenished because they can not be produced naturally."

"In the future, we must start looking for ways to carry out large-scale restoration projects of this type, in order to make them more meaningful.

El Nino estimates and the importance of human intervention

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology estimates a 70% chance of an El Nino phenomenon in the coming months, when temperatures will be warmer and more extreme, but tropical storms will decrease slightly.

"It is really urgent for us to do this technique now – starting this year, because we will face the potential of other major El Nino developing and the consequences will be to raise the temperature of the sea and the possibility of a significant bleaching, "said Professor Harrison.

David Wachenfeld, chief scientist of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Directorate, agrees. He says coral reefs will remain under pressure as temperatures rise.

"The problem is that when humans change, the global climate warms, coral reefs warm up as well, creating the conditions for bleaching and killing coral reefs, which occur more frequently and more seriously, "he said.

Maritimes researcher Katie Chartrand said the project was done in collaboration with James Cook University, Southern Cross University and the University of Technology Sydney, with help from international researchers and organizations. tourist.

"We have 55 people involved in this project," he said.

"We also have teams from the Philippines to participate."

Coral reef restoration projects can become global

Professor Harrison said that the scale of operations of this project was unprecedented but needed to be expanded.

"This project is the first large-scale effort to effectively return millions of larvae to the coral reef system," he said.

"Then we plan to do it on a larger scale and in the next few years we will be aiming at the square kilometer scale.

"The extent of damage to coral reefs in the world is very abundant, more than 70% of the world's coral reefs are in very bad shape and 10 to 20% are facing the immediate pressure of a coral reef." ever-increasing population.

"We have to operate on a much larger scale than this one in the future."

Mr Chartrand said that if the project succeeds, a similar approach could be applied to damaged coral reefs around the world.

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