Florida scientists are giving coral IVF treatments to help bolster dying reef

Coral reefs are experiencing mass bleaching and die-off events. Scientists are now looking for ways to toughen them up. 

• Coral reefs are experiencing mass bleaching and die-off events due to climate change. 
• Scientists are now looking for ways to toughen them up and bolster their numbers. 
• These methods include temperature-controlled tanks and new breeding methods.

After marine heatwaves devastated the coral reef off the coast of Florida, scientists are now considering ways to toughen up coral in the face of rising ocean temperatures.

Following a record marine heat wave this past summer, Florida's iconic coral reef experienced massive bleaching and die-offs. One estimate from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute estimated that 60% of monitored coral reefs were bleached as a result of the stress — a sign that the coral could potentially die off if the stress is prolonged.

Ian Enochs, the head of the coral program at NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory, told the Wall Street Journal that his team is looking at a variety of methods to help the vulnerable sea creatures bolster their numbers.

One such method was subjecting the coral to "gyms," Enochs told the publication. In these tanks, corals are trained to withstand high temperatures and acidic seawater conditions in waves. The water is also injected with nitrogen and phosphorus — chemical pollutants most often associated with fertilizer runoff that could exacerbate coral bleaching.

"If we hit corals twice a day with very high stressful temperatures, it toughens them up," Enochs told the Journal.

Another method that the team is looking at is targeting the reproduction of coral to help boost their populations. This includes administering in vitro fertilization, or IVF, to quicken the growth of their larvae and giving them booster shots to prevent them from dying after experiencing bleaching.

For years, scientists have been looking for ways to make coral resistant to heat as climate change results in more marine heatwaves and healthy coral reefs continue to decline. In 2020, the BBC reported that a team of researchers tried altering the algae that live on coral to make it more heat-resistant, therefore making coral bleaching events less likely.

Researchers are also breeding coral on land now to prevent more die-offs and determine which species are more likely to survive human-induced climate change.

"If we can breed these corals growing in tanks and produce offspring by the tens of thousands we can start to have an impact on the problem," Andrew Baker, a principal investigator for the Darpa hybrid reef project, told the Journal. "We are great at destroying reef ecosystems. We just need to reverse that trajectory and become great at restoring them."