Researchers discover "rice" coral's innovative survival strategy
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Within a two-year window of the 1997-98 El Niño event, 16 percent of the world's coral reefs were dead.
As fragile as it is beautiful, coral survives in a narrow temperature range centered at about 26 Degrees Celsius. When water temperature climbs above that range--even by as little as two degrees--the result is a bleaching event that can damage, if not destroy, large portions of coral reefs.
In bleaching events--more common these days because of global warming--some corals quickly die off while others are able to recover. That has puzzled Ohio State's Andrea Grottoli and other researchers.
To figure out why that's the case, Grottoli, an assistant professor of geological sciences, went to the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, where she has been examining corals for the past 13 years.
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She found that certain species of coral have an unexpected way of fighting for survival when seriously bleached: Gluttony.
When bleached, Porites ("finger" coral) feeds at its normal rate, while Montipora ("rice" coral) increases its rate of feeding more than five-fold. Porites coral often dies, while Montipora's approach allows it not only to survive, but also to repair itself by replenishing its internal energy reserves.
“We think that this means that coral like Montipora can switch how it gets its food so that it can sustain itself in a bleached state much longer than can corals like Porites,” she said. “While bleached Porites is limited by how much energy reserves it has, bleached Montipora is not."
(Excerpted from a Research News story by Earle Holland. Read the full story.)
Related links:
Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology (off site)
Ohio State's Research Foundation
Research at Ohio State:
- Ohio State was recently ranked 9th among public research universities.
- The university spent $518 million on research projects in 2004, including $285 million in federal money.
- Without dedicated researchers, that money "unquestionably would have gone to other institutions in other states," said Robert McGrath, Ohio State's senior vice president for research.
