Transplant breathes new life into coral reef

CORAL bred in one part of the Great Barrier Reef was successfully transplanted into another area, Australian scientists said yesterday, in a project they hope could restore damaged ecosystems around the world.

In a trial at the reef’s Heron Island off Australia’s east coast, researchers collected large amounts of coral spawn and eggs late last year, grew them into larvae and then transplanted them into areas of damaged reef.

When they returned eight months later, they found juvenile coral that had survived and grown.

“The success of this new research not only applies to the Great Barrier Reef but also has potential global significance,” lead researcher Peter Harrison said. “It shows we can start to restore and repair damaged coral populations where the natural supply of coral larvae has been compromised.”

Harrison said his approach contrasts with the coral gardening method of breaking up healthy coral and sticking branches on reefs in the hope they will regrow, or growing coral in nurseries before transplantation.

He was optimistic his approach, which was successfully tried out in the Philippines in an area of reef highly degraded by blast fishing, could help reefs recover on a larger scale.

The Great Barrier Reef, the largest living structure on earth, is reeling from an unprecedented second straight year of coral bleaching because of warming sea temperatures linked to climate change. – AFP