Marine biologist advocated breeding ‘super coral’ to replenish vanishing reefs
Ruth Gates, who has died of cancer aged 56, was a pre-eminent coral-reef biologist and marine conservationist best remembered for advocating the breeding of a ‘‘super coral’’ that could resist the effects of global warming and replenish rapidly deteriorating reefs worldwide.
She died in hospital in Hawaii from complications related to brain cancer treatment, according to her wife, Robin Burton-Gates.
Gates grew up in England and said she first became transfixed by coral reefs through the colour TV films of sea explorer Jacques Cousteau. ‘‘Even though Cousteau was coming through the television, he unveiled the oceans in a way that nobody else had been able to,’’ she told the New Yorker in 2016.
By 11, she said she knew she wanted to be a marine biologist. She went on to obtain a doctorate in marine biology, publish dozens of scientific papers and, in 2015, become the first woman elected president of the International Society for Reef Studies. She also appeared in the Emmywinning Netflix documentary Chasing Coral (2017) and became a frequent commentator on reef conservation as well as the effects of climate change.
‘‘Corals seem to be the most complicated organisms on the planet, so if I can understand them, I can understand everything else,’’ she said earlier this year.
Like all coral biologists, Gates studied a vanishing organism. Over the course of her career, she witnessed the death of roughly one-third to one-half of the world’s reefs as the species was battered by pollution, acidifying oceans and rising temperatures.
Corals are tiny, anemone-like animals that often live in huge colonies made from thousands of genetically identical polyps. Like their kin, coral polyps have tentacles armed with stinging cells that can capture microscopic bits of food from the water.
Most corals have a symbiotic relationship with tiny algae that live inside their tissues. And like plants, these algae are able to use the energy from sunlight to build sugars that they share with their animal hosts. It was this intimate relationship that perplexed and fascinated Gates, so she decided to study corals specifically to try to understand the symbiosis at the molecular level.
She arrived in Jamaica for graduate fieldwork in 1985, just in time to witness this symbiotic relationship break down. In 1987, the Caribbean had one of the first major coral bleaching events, where the normally colourful animals suddenly lose their algal partners, and their white skeletons become visible. Gates’ early work helped biologists understand that such bleaching was a severe version of a normal temperature-driven process.
The boldest of her endeavours involved ‘‘super corals’’, ones that have been
‘‘Corals seem to be the most complicated organisms on the planet, so if I can understand them, I can understand everything else.’’
Ruth Gates
Coral scientist b March 28, 1962 d October 25, 2018 Do you know someone who deserves a Life Story? Email obituaries@dompost.co.nz specifically selected and bred for their abilities to withstand the warmer, more acidic waters predicted to occur in the future because of climate change. It’s an idea that stemmed from her early work on coral bleaching, and her observations that, no matter how bad a bleaching event was, some individual corals always survived. ‘‘Knowing that time is short to save corals and humanity, Ruth saw opportunity in breeding corals that have not only survived prior hardships, but thrived under tough conditions,’’ said Brian Taylor, dean of the University of Hawaii’s School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology. ‘‘Her lab is determining what traits make some corals better survivors than others, and reinforcing those traits through selective breeding.’’
Gates referred to it as ‘‘accelerating natural selection’’. Ultimately, she said, these ‘‘super corals’’ could be used to replenish reefs after mass die-offs, like the ones experienced in recent years by the Great Barrier Reef.
Her vision drew criticism from some in the scientific community. ‘‘I find it implausible that we’re going to succeed in doing in a couple of years what evolution hasn’t succeeded at over the past few hundred million years,’’ Ken Caldeira, a researcher at Stanford University, told the New Yorker in 2016. ‘‘There’s this idea that there should be some easy techno-fix, if only we could be creative enough to find it. I guess I just don’t think that’s true.’’
Gates often noted the resistance she encountered as a young woman aspiring to a career in science, and she became a staunch advocate for her students, regardless of sex. When elected president of the International Society for Reef Studies, one of her first actions was to diversify its staff.
She was known for her disarming charisma, and a soothing British accent tempered by fierce grit. She had a black belt in karate.
Ruth Deborah Gates was born in Akrotiri, Cyprus. She grew up mostly in Kent, southeast England, where she attended a boarding school while her parents travelled for her father’s work in military intelligence.
In September, she married her companion of four years. In addition to her wife, survivors include a brother. – Washington Post