{"id":631063,"date":"2026-10-15T05:12:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T05:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/631063\/"},"modified":"2026-10-15T05:12:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T05:12:09","slug":"healthy-corals-help-bleached-neighbours-regain-colour-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/631063\/","title":{"rendered":"Healthy corals help bleached neighbours regain colour: Study"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2013 The world\u2019s coral reefs face an existential threat from rising seawater temperatures that trigger widespread bleaching, a problem driven by climate change and compounded by 2026\u2019s intense El Nino phenomenon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But a new lab study by scientists at Stanford University finds that simply placing healthy, colourful coral in contact with their bleached counterparts is enough to bring the dying ones back from the brink \u2013 a finding that could eventually pave the way for real-world interventions if it can be scaled.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s stunning,\u201d lead author Daniel Collins told AFP about the outcome of the experiments, recalling the \u201ceureka moment\u201d when he first saw positive results and rushed to his PhD supervisor\u2019s office to share the news.<\/p>\n

The paper was published on Oct 14 in the journal Science Advances.<\/p>\n

Coral reef recovery is a highly active area of research, with efforts ranging from using artificial nurseries to rescue reefs to finding and cultivating more heat-tolerant species.<\/p>\n

Bleached corals had been largely written off because of their high mortality rate, said Collins \u2013 though the new work instead demonstrates they \u201creally shouldn\u2019t be thought of as a lost cause\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Stanford team ran a series of tests with pairs of cauliflower corals, finding five days of contact between healthy and bleached fragments was all it took for the latter to mount a spectacular recovery, at which point they could be safely pried apart.<\/p>\n

The key to the success of the method \u2013 which the team informally dubbed \u201chelping hands\u201d \u2013 is the transfer of healthy photosynthetic algae, also known as symbionts, from which corals derive their colour.<\/p>\n

Corals are marine invertebrates made up of hundreds to thousands of tiny, soft-bodied organisms called polyps.<\/p>\n

They have a mutualistic relationship with symbionts, which produce the vast majority of food the corals require, in return for shelter, as well as water and the carbon dioxide they need to photosynthesise.<\/p>\n

But in times of heat stress, algae can produce toxins, forcing their hosts to expel them.<\/p>\n

Collins said the idea for the experiment came from two sources.<\/p>\n

The first was a study that showed plastic waste in the ocean can promote disease in corals by transferring harmful pathogens, which made him wonder whether it would be possible to flip that mechanism on its head with a health-promoting transfer.<\/p>\n

The second was a happy accident observed by Stephen Palumbi, the study\u2019s senior author, also at Stanford, who noticed in his lab that a healthy coral and bleached coral had tipped over and were touching each other, and the bleached coral had started to recover.<\/p>\n

The scaling challenge<\/p>\n

The experiments revealed important constraints.<\/p>\n

Three days of contact was the minimum required for a bleached coral to begin to recover, and five ensured full recovery.<\/p>\n

They also had to be in direct contact \u2013 a few millimetres apart, and nothing significant happened.<\/p>\n

A major limitation was that the process worked only when the two corals shared the same genetic background, or \u201cgenet\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mixed-genet pairings resulted in the corals deploying stinging cells, a hostile response that can be likened to organ rejection in humans.<\/p>\n

Powerful laser microscopy revealed the mechanism: After a day or two of contact, the corals\u2019 tissues began fusing, creating a \u201cnutrient highway\u201d between the pair.<\/p>\n

The biggest challenge will be translating an exciting lab finding into a real-world solution.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe likely will not be touching corals to one another on reefs,\u201d said Collins, noting the sheer size of reefs tends to preclude this option.<\/p>\n

However, it is possible to extract healthy symbionts and culture them \u2013 and the team is now thinking about ways to re-introduce them en masse to bleached coral.<\/p>\n

This also has the benefit of side-stepping the genetic mismatch problem, which applies to the corals, not the symbionts. AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2013 The world\u2019s coral reefs face an existential threat from rising seawater temperatures that trigger widespread bleaching,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":631064,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[111,139,69,147],"class_list":["post-631063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=631063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/631064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=631063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=631063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=631063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}