Research says Corals are Habituating to Global Warming

With the rising temperature and increased levels of pollution, the coral reef is posed with a threat. The very existence of the coral reef has been depleting day after day.

The elevation of temperature at the sea surface levels has caused damage to the coral reefs. However, a group of scientists have reported that corals are now adapting themselves to the increasing temperatures.

The researchers crossed corals from naturally warmer areas of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia with corals from a cooler latitude nearly 300 miles t the south. The scientists observed that the coral larvae with parents from the north were up to 10 times likely to survive heat stress, compared with those with parents from the south.

Mikhail Matz, Associate Professor of Integrative Biology at The University of Texas at Austin, said, "Our research found that corals do not have to wait for new mutations to appear. Averting coral extinction may start with something as simple as exchange of coral immigrations to spread already existing genetic variants, coral larvae can move across oceans naturally, but humans could also contribute, relocating adult corals to jump start the process".

Using the genetic methodology, scientists were able to establish that corals could acquit themselves with the capacity to resist higher temperature, in other words an increase in global warming.

Line Bay, an evolutionary ecologist with the Australian Institute of Marine Sciences in Townsville, said, " This discovery adds to our understanding of the potential for coral to cope with hotter oceans".