Scientists have successfully bred corals that are more tolerant of heat, showing for the first time that corals can become better adapted to warming within the space of a single generation.
By breeding corals with the greatest heat tolerance, scientists produced offspring that could endure either an additional 4.5 degrees F (2.5 degrees C) of heat over the course of a month or an extra 6.3 degrees F (3.5 degrees C) over 10 days. While the improvements were small compared to the growing severity of ocean heat waves, the study, published in Nature Communications, shows that heat tolerance can be inherited, suggesting that selective breeding could be a valuable tool in helping corals adapt to climate change.
Scientists say that more work needs to be done to understand which genes help corals cope with heat and what kind of tolerance to prioritize. Writing in The Conversation, the study authors said that “corals that are good at surviving the short sharp heat stress aren’t necessarily the best at surviving longer term marine heatwaves.” The next step for researchers, they say, is to see how selectively bred corals stand up to heat waves in the wild.
Coauthor Liam Lachs, a postdoctoral researcher at Newcastle University, stressed that the world must slash emissions and get warming in check to give even heat-tolerant corals a fighting chance. Of the new study, he said, “This work shows that selective breeding is feasible but not a silver bullet solution.”
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