Detecting some species of coral adapted to climate change

When seawater is continuously heated, scientists have observed events of coral bleaching at a greater and more frequent level. Ecologists worry that climate change can make corals extinct and that it is a disaster for the marine environment.

Some coral species adapt to climate change

But according to a recent study at the University of Texas, some corals have the genetic variation needed to prevent such catastrophic consequences.

Coral - Photo: Shutterstock

UPI news agency quoted researchers as saying that there are a number of corals capable of adapting to warmer water because of beneficial and transportable genes .

Biology professor Mikhail Matz, of the University of Texas, said the group has found that corals do not need to wait for new mutations to appear. The resistance to extinction of corals can begin as simple as the exchange of migratory corals that transmit the genetic variants it possesses. Coral larvae can naturally move across the ocean and humans can also participate to help the coral survive by moving them.

Researchers have experimented with a number of endemic Great Barrier Reef corals of different latitudes, transported coral larvae to new locations and recorded their resistance to heat stress.

The coral species in the north are 10 times more likely to survive to the farther south.Genetic tools have helped scientists identify genes that activate coral heat tolerance.

"This discovery adds to our understanding of the potential for corals to cope with warmer oceans ," said Line Bay, an evolutionary ecologist at Australia's Marine Science Institute.