Direct coral contact reportedly restarted bleaching recovery within one week
LIFEUnverifiedUpdated:
A Stanford laboratory experiment reportedly found that a healthy coral fragment transferred symbiotic algae and nutrients to a bleached neighbor when the two genetically identical fragments touched, initiating recovery after one week of contact.
Direct-contact tests with fragments from one colony
ScienceAlert reports that researchers placed healthy and bleached Pocillopora damicornis fragments from the same colony in direct contact in a laboratory.
At the contact point, the healthy fragment reportedly supplied algal symbionts—algae that live within coral tissues—and nutrients to the bleached fragment. The report says even a gap of a few millimeters prevented the transfer, and describes the fragments as fusing tissue to form a nutrient bridge.
The reported laboratory observation began with one bleached and one healthy fragment of genetically identical Pocillopora damicornis from the same colony. The account does not provide a matched before-and-after comparison for wild reefs.
According to the report, one week of direct contact initiated recovery in the bleached fragments; complete recovery took up to seven weeks. Separating the fragments after that first week reportedly did not change the recovery rate.
A gap of a few millimeters prevented transfer
If borne out, the result identifies direct contact as a way to seed a bleached coral with symbiotic algae. The reported test was limited to laboratory fragments from the same colony; whether it works on wild reefs or can be used at scale remains unclear.
Sources
- ScienceAlertHealthy Coral Reversed Bleaching in Its Neighbor With Just 1 Week of ContactRead source →