The Cutting, Growing, and Outplanting Coral For More Coral. Plus, How Are Coral Colonial?
Criteria: B | Coral reef restoration methods
Micro,
miny,
tiny
bits.
But,
every
bit,
always
counts.
Hello again, it’s been a while. Figuring out a flow and a setting, but overall, feeling good. The New Year’s almost here, and remember to be as resilient as a cactus. Because what a shitty situation we’re all in at the moment, but that’s past the point. To pick up from where I last left off last month; what I think look like coral jigsaw puzzle pieces.
Discovered accidentally, by scientist Dr. David E. Vaughan (kind of like an ‘Aha!’ moment), this post is about the micro-fragmentation technique which is being used to speed up the growth rate[1] of large to massive coral. A happy accident, to say the least.
Dear Patient Reader,
Coral are naturally very slow growing[2] “living rocks”. Though biologically speaking, coral are very slow growing animals. Very slow growing animals that are facing quite a mountain of red-flagged dangers being thrown their way. According to an estimate, coral reefs cover less than 1% of the seafloor but are home to over 25% of marine life.[3] That’s a hefty amount of life to harbour. There are a number of newly emerging (although long-time), innovative ways laboratories/nurseries are offering practical solutions for serious problems. One of them, which acts to give a much needed helpful lift to coral reef ecosystems on the brink of going down the downers.
Corals are susceptible to high risk or fatal factors such as thermal stressors, coral bleaching, and/or acidifying ocean waters. Coral bleaching is the process when corals become white due to various stressors, such as changes in temperature, light, or nutrients. Bleaching occurs when coral polyps expel the algae that live inside their tissue, causing the coral to turn white.[4] I wasn’t aware as a child that all that was so strewn along the shoreline were pieces of broken, bleached coral. And to think that I collected it. Pretty sad now that I think of it. So innocently and happily collecting dead fragments from the sea’s garden. Adding dead remnants from the sea’s rainforest to my seashell collection. Keeping it. Ugh.
Sandwiched between local and global stressors, and human induced climate change[5] it comes tough for coral reefs to protect and evolve their own natural resistance. Hence, coral are left solely with the option but to die off. But help is there.
The micro-fragmentation technique was created by Dr. David E. Vaughan, of the Mote Marine Laboratory, Florida, the United States. Apart from overall coral reproduction, micro-fragmentation can be used for the successful restoration of slow growing large to massive stony coral.[6] Scleractinia, stony corals, or hard corals, are marine animals in the phylum Cnidaria that build themselves a hard skeleton (hey calcium carbonate). The individual animals are known as polyps and have a cylindrical body crowned by an oral disc in which their mouth is fringed with tentacles.[7]
Like when you cut your skin and it grows faster in order to heal. When corals are cut into smaller pieces it stimulates rapid growth of tissue.[8] Micro-fragmentation uses a specialised saw to separate small amounts of tissue that ensures that there are one to five polyps present so that the coral has a mouth to feed from.[9] How are corals colonial? Almost all corals are colonial organisms. This means that they are composed of hundreds to hundreds of thousands of individual animals, called polyps. Each polyp has a stomach that opens at only one end. This opening, called the mouth, is surrounded by a circle of tentacles.[10] Very sea-like.
As a viable coral reef restoration tool,[11] the micro-fragmentation technique falls into the coral gardening concept.[12] ‘The technique propagates corals using in situ [in the original place] coral nurseries with small amounts of wild collected stock. These corals are fragmented into small pieces [using a scalpel or specialised electric saw] and allowed to grow in size. Once grown, corals are either refragmented or are outplanted (to transplant from a nursery to the designated location) onto degraded reefs and monitored for growth and survival. Once ready, corals are outplanted onto the designated reef. These coral may have either been grown in coral nurseries; on-land (ex-situ; away from a species’ natural habitat) or in-water (in-situ).[13] That is, ex-situ/land-based or in-situ/ocean-based coral nurseries. Several studies have [shown promising] results’.[14] Though more research, hence more trial and error is required in this field.
To recap, ‘coral gardening is a method of growing coral polyps to help restore reefs. Also referred to as coral farming, the gardening method involves taking small coral fragments and growing them through asexual reproduction (not involving sex cells or fertilisation) until they are mature’.[15] Using the micro-fragmentation technique, ‘researchers take a living coral and fragment it. [The coral is cut] into tiny pieces which will all grow back into equally sized pieces in a fraction of the time they would otherwise take to grow in nature. After a couple of months the coral cultures are developed enough to be outplanted on existing reefs to replace those that have been lost due to [coral] bleaching and disease. What’s more, because the new corals are all genetically identical to each other they fuse together easily and form large colonies that would have taken decades to develop naturally.’[16]
Having the same genotype (same genetic material), individual coral pieces that were cut and fragmented fuse together, instead of fighting against each other for space and dominance. Genes go a long way. Thus having the great ability of fusing into a coral colony. Which is also termed as “coral fusion”. That the aquaculture solution of micro-fragmentation fosters. Fragmenting corals into smaller fragments is proving to be rewarding to marine scientists.
In addition, the potential of micro-fragmentation could have beneficial, logarithmic results. A scalable solution. A means for a chance of survival in a marine environment where impact is very tangible, felt, and seen.
Many in the field of coral reef restoration conclude that the focus of efforts needs to be towards the building of resistant coral reefs, rather than recovery alone.[17] I would think that both are needed in synchronisation.
Have a good week ahead fellas. Ciao
P.S. Check out ‘Microfragmentation: A New Coral Restoration Technique’ (link below). Which explains and demonstrates how the micro-fragmentation technique is carried out at the Mote Marine Laboratory in Florida, the United States.
Link |
Have you ever come across the illustrations of German zoologist, Ernst Haeckel? From his Kunstformen der Natur (Arts Forms of Nature), 1904. Rather wonderful.
P.P.S. Next week’s post is titled “Cutting Back Carbon”, which is about the use of digital technologies as viable and scalable methods to cut down on carbon emissions.
References
[1] https://marinemadness.blog/2019/03/04/microfragmentation-how-smashing-up-corals-helps-them-grow-faster/
[2] “Ibid”. [1]
[3] “Ibid”. [1]
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coral_bleaching
[5] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925857418303094
[6] “Ibid”. [5]
[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scleractinia
[8] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRBpZGOQmNo
[9] “Ibid”. [8]
[10] https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/tutorial_corals/coral01_intro.html
[11] “Ibid”. [5]
[12] “Ibid”. [5]
[13] https://www.carolyncowanmedia.com/blog/coral-reef-restoration-in-the-seychelles
[14] “Ibid”. [5]
[15] https://sciencing.com/how-coral-gardening-is-saving-reefs-13718316.html
[16] “Ibid”. [1]
[17] “Ibid”. [5]
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