Scientists at an aquarium just figured out how to save Florida’s ‘Great Barrier Reef’

... In the breakthrough experiment that resulted in today’s confirmation of a successful laboratory mating, the team actually solved their problem with sleepy researchers too. Instead of staying up all night to observe the limited spawning, they flipped the coral‘s day/night cycle by changing the lighting conditions inside the laboratory so the researchers could watch it during their normal work day.

Scientists at an aquarium just figured out how to save Florida’s ‘Great Barrier Reef’ Coral-796x413

Scientists at an aquarium just figured out how to save Florida’s ‘Great Barrier Reef’ Coral-796x413

This wasn’t just a matter of dimming the lights or closing the curtains. Everything has to go just right for coral to mate; the lighting has to be exact, and the temperature has to be perfect. The species that O’Niel and her team were working with, pillar coral, typically mate during the summer months after a full moon. With this in mind, the team created a computer-controlled LED lighting system to ensure those conditions were met to a tee.
And then Mother Nature did what Mother Nature does.
Just a few square meters of coral can produce thousands upon thousands of eggs and sperm. The hope is that the team’s method can be used to set up relatively small populations of coral in artificial environments to spawn new coral annually that will then be seeded in the reef to replace its decimated pillar coral population.
Scientists had previously used a similar technique to reproduce Pacific coral in laboratories, but this was the first time anyone had successfully pulled it off with an Atlantic species. For more information about the Florida Aquarium’s “Project Coral” click here.

https://thenextweb.com/science/2019/08/21/scientists-at-an-aquarium-just-figured-out-how-to-save-floridas-great-barrier-reef/

Scientists at an aquarium just figured out how to save Florida’s ‘Great Barrier Reef’

Scientists at an aquarium just figured out how to save Florida’s ‘Great Barrier Reef’

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