Article Author:
Associated Press
Wilfred Lee
MIAMI (AP) — Scientists and students at the University of Miami plunged into dark waters miles off the coast of Miami this week. of efforts to develop hybrid coral reefs.
A team from the Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science was tasked with collecting eggs and sperm from spawning corals. The research team hopes to use it to fertilize other species of coral in the lab.
These are all part of a $7.5 million federal grant from the US Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency to build military and civilian infrastructure along vulnerable coastal areas of Florida and the Caribbean. Helps address security threats to
This Miami-based project seeks to use hybrid her coral reefs to protect coastal stations from damage caused by hurricane storm surges.
"Our mission is to develop a hybrid reef that combines the wave protection benefits of man-made structures with the ecological benefits of coral reefs," said Rosensteel's Institute for the Future of Coral Reefs. says Andrew Baker, professor and director of school. “We are working on next-generation structural designs and concrete materials, integrating them with new eco-engineering approaches to help promote coral growth on these structures.”
They will also test new adaptive biological approaches to produce corals that grow faster and are more resilient to a warming climate, he said.
Corals spawn only a few nights each year, depending on water temperature and lunar cycles. Coral colonies simultaneously release eggs and sperm into the water column to fertilize each other and produce baby corals.
