Coral reef put on ‘IVF’

Scientists have launched the largest attempt yet to regenerate coral on the endangered Great Barrier Reef by harvesting millions of the creatures’ eggs and sperm during their annual spawning.

The researchers said on Wednesday they plan to grow coral larvae from the harvested eggs and return these to areas of the reef which have been badly damaged by climate-related coral bleaching.

“This is the first time the entire process of large-scale larval rearing and settlement will be undertaken directly on reefs on the Great Barrier Reef,” Southern Cross University’s Peter Harrison said.

“Our team will be restoring hundreds of square metres with the goal of getting to square kilometres in the future, a scale not attempted previously,” he said.

The Larval Restoration Project launch was timed to coincide with the annual coral spawn on the reef, which began earlier this week and will last only about 48 to 72 hours.

Coral along large swathes of the 2,300km reef have been killed by rising sea temperatures linked to climate change, leaving behind skeletal remains in a process known as coral bleaching.

Meanwhile, more than a third of Indonesia’s coral reefs are in bad condition, scientists said on Tuesday, raising concerns about the future of the vast marine ecosystem.

The precarious state of the country’s coral reefs was revealed after a survey.