I heard about the
Great Barrier Reef
dying in the 1960s,
when I was a teenager !
The reef has allegedly
been "dying"
for almost 60 years !
But like a zombie,
it never dies !
The "dying" is always coming
in the future, like the coming
climate change catastrophe
is always coming in the future,
but they never show up.
There is something
that makes coral spawn
more than once a year,
improving the resilience
of the Great Barrier Reef.
University of Queensland
and CSIRO researchers
investigating whether corals
that split their spawning
over multiple months
are more successful
at spreading offspring
across different reefs.
Dr Karlo Hock,
from UQ’s School
of Biological Sciences,
said coral mass
spawning events
are one of the most
spectacular events
in the oceans.
Dr Hock said:
“On Australia’s Great Barrier Reef,
all coral colonies typically spawn
only once per year, over several nights
after the full moon, as the water warms
up in late spring.”
Study co-author Dr Christopher
Doropoulos from the CSIRO
Oceans & Atmosphere said
sometimes however,
coral split their spawning
over two successive months.
“This helps them synchronize
their reproduction to the best
environmental conditions
and moon phases,”
he said.
“ ... we found that
the release of eggs
in two separate
smaller events
gives the corals
a second and
improved chance
of finding a new
home reef.”
“ ... split spawning can
increase the recovery
potential for reefs
in the region."
“A more reliable supply
of coral larvae could
particularly benefit reefs
that have recently
suffered disturbances,
when coral populations
need new coral recruits
the most."
“This will become
more important
as coral reefs face
increasingly unpredictable
environmental conditions
and disturbances.”
“Mitigating well-established
local and global threats t
o coral reefs – like river runoffs
and carbon dioxide emissions
– is essential for their
continued survival.”
Dr Hock said
the research
also revealed that
the natural processes
of recovery
can sometimes be
more resilient
than originally thought.
The study between UQ, CSIRO
and ARC Centre of Excellence
for Coral Reef Studies
was published in
Nature Communications
(DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-11367-7)