Coral may be able to adapt to
increased sea temperatures more easily than experts had thought.
The finding allows cautious hope that the world's reefs will
escape devastation at the hands of global warming.
Researchers have discovered that
coral, tiny animals that forge alliances with algae to harness
energy from the Sun, can team up with algae that are more tolerant
of heat in response to warmer sea temperatures.
Experts had worried that warming
could wipe out the world's reefs by 'bleaching' them, a process in
which the coloured algae are destroyed to leave the corals in a
bone-white, limbo state that can kill off a reef in weeks. But now
it seems that some algae can survive higher temperatures, and can
colonize bleached reefs, restoring them to life.
"Corals have a cunning ability to
adapt to events because they're flexible in their associations,"
says Andrew Baker of the Wildlife Conservation Society in New
York, one of the researchers who made the discovery. "This shows
that the more dramatic predictions of coral-reef doom are
simplistic."
