Future of Reef just got brighter

SCIENTISTS have unlocked the genetic key to “super corals” in a world-first to help save the Great Barrier Reef.

The DNA breakthrough is part of a global quest to create, select, discover, and cultivate heat-tolerant corals that can withstand climate change and the devastating impact of mass coral bleaching events.

The five-year “Sea-quence” project, headed by the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, cracked the complex DNA code of nine different coral species out of 600 soft and hard corals on the living wonder.

“Scientists have long believed the secret to understanding why some corals survive and bounce back from threats like warming oceans is linked to their genes,’’ GBR Foundation chief Anna Marsden said.

“This project has really set the benchmark to discover which corals are best able to survive and live with the impacts of climate change and why.”

Tourism leaders and reef managers believe the DNA breakthrough might one day be used to transplant genetically engineered supercorals to repopulate bleached reef the length of the 2300km-long underwater treasure.

Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority Chairman Dr Russell Reichelt said only two coral species had previously been genetically mapped.

“The Sea-quence project is a great example of Reef scientists and managers working on new and innovative solutions to tackle threats to the Reef,” Dr Reichelt said.

“Sequencing the entire coral genome is a breakthrough that will enable a new suite of research to understand why these organisms respond the way they do to their environment, including threats.

“Understanding corals at this level will provide new options for management action to protect them into the future.”

For the first time, the Porites lutea species, a type of massive boulder coral, was DNA sequenced for the entire coral organism – the coral animal, the tiny plants (zooxanthellae) that live in its tissue, and associated microbes including bacteria and viruses.

GBR Foundation’s Dr Petra Lundgren said coral genomes turned out to be much bigger and more diverse than previously thought. “The genetic information from just one coral species alone would fill 30,000 volumes of War and Peace,’’ she said.

The Sea-quence project is an initiative of the ReFuGe 2020 Consortium, a collaboration between the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, Australian Institute of Marine Science, Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, Bioplatforms Australia, James Cook University, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (Saudi Arabia), University of Queensland, and Australian National University.