Researchers put bleached corals and healthy corals together for 5 days - and were astounded at what they saw

Key Points:

• A new study published in Science Advances reveals that brief physical contact with healthy corals can reverse coral bleaching by transferring beneficial algae (zooxanthellae) to bleached corals, enabling rapid recovery.
• Coral bleaching occurs when high water temperatures cause corals to expel their symbiotic algae, leading to starvation and potential death if the algae do not return quickly.
• The research showed that only a few days of contact between healthy and bleached corals of the same clone are sufficient to initiate recovery, with full recovery observed within eight weeks in experiments.
• This discovery offers a promising new approach to mitigating coral loss amid increasing global bleaching events, although further research is needed to apply the findings on a large scale in natural reef environments.
• The study highlights the urgent need for innovative solutions to protect coral reefs, which face annual mass bleaching predictions by 2080 due to rising ocean temperatures.