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Feeding coral reefs can aid their recovery from bleaching events

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2024-10-01 18:00:02

This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility:

Coral reefs will continue to experience severe heat stress as rising temperatures cause the oceans to become unbearably hot—but a new study shows that altering their feeding habits could allow local populations to avoid total extinction.

Research into two species of coral native to Hawaii revealed that warmer waters caused by climate change play an important role in coral bleaching—a process that causes coral to lose their color—significantly disrupting coral health and growth. The effect that ocean acidification, a process that causes seawater to become more acidic due to the excess amount of carbon dioxide it has absorbed, has on heat-stressed coral was also investigated.

Over the last decade, there has been a rise in the incidence and severity of mass coral bleaching events around the globe, leading to increased mortality for these vital organisms.