Researchers have been propagating them at coastal nurseries, but decided to bring some ashore now because of indications that 2026 will be \u201ca really bad year\u201d for bleaching \u2014 perhaps even worse than 2023, Lirman said. Coral has been showing indications of heat stress as water temperatures rise.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n Elkhorn coral from an offshore nursery are placed in a saltwater restoration tank at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science to protect them from anticipated high ocean temperatures and coral bleaching Wednesday, July 22, 2026, in Key Biscayne, Fla. (AP Photo\/Marta Lavandier)<\/p>\n Elkhorn coral from an offshore nursery are placed in a saltwater restoration tank at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science to protect them from anticipated high ocean temperatures and coral bleaching Wednesday, July 22, 2026, in Key Biscayne, Fla. (AP Photo\/Marta Lavandier)<\/p>\n Add AP News on Google <\/p>\n Add AP News as your preferred source to see more of our stories on Google.<\/p>\n Share<\/p>\n Read More<\/p>\n Coral populations are living creatures that form reefs, globally important for seafood production, protecting coastlines from storm surges and tourism. But scientists fear they could be lost because of climate change: Florida coral has experienced four mass bleaching events in the past decade.<\/p>\n \u201cThey seem to be blending into each other and corals are not getting time to recover,\u201d Lirman said.<\/p>\n Divers focused Wednesday on collecting genetically diverse coral pieces, wrapping each in wet bubble wrap and placing them in coolers before sanitizing them and putting them in tanks at the hatchery. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Senior research associate Hesley Dalton, center, demonstrates how to tie an elkorn coral to a saltwater restoration tank to interns Jennifer Dranetz and Jonathan Smotrich at the the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science, Wednesday, July 22, 2026, in Key Biscayne, Fla. (AP Photo\/Marta Lavandier)<\/p>\n Senior research associate Hesley Dalton, center, demonstrates how to tie an elkorn coral to a saltwater restoration tank to interns Jennifer Dranetz and Jonathan Smotrich at the the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science, Wednesday, July 22, 2026, in Key Biscayne, Fla. (AP Photo\/Marta Lavandier)<\/p>\n Add AP News on Google <\/p>\n Add AP News as your preferred source to see more of our stories on Google.<\/p>\n Share<\/p>\n Read More<\/p>\n The university exchanges coral with other researchers and facilities to preserve as much original genetic diversity as possible in nurseries and in hatcheries, \u201cso if one goes down you don\u2019t lose the last remaining genetic information,\u201d Lirman said.<\/p>\n \u201cYou never know: You may have some that are resistant to disease, some that are resistant to temperature, some that are resistant to acidification,\u201d he said. \u201cOnce we lose them, then that information is lost.\u201d<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n The Associated Press\u2019 climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP\u2019s standards<\/a> for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"KEY BISCAYNE, Fla. (AP) \u2014 Scientists working to save a coral species from extinction transported 30 pieces from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":349433,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1838,5885,22201,18237,132275,1882,28,30,29,477,142899,123,11950,554,1110,221],"class_list":["post-349432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-climate-and-environment","tag-climate-change","tag-coastlines-and-beaches","tag-corals","tag-diego-lirman","tag-fl-state-wire","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-general-news","tag-heat-waves","tag-miami","tag-oceanography","tag-science","tag-u-s-news","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/349433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Elkhorn](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1784776701_635_.jpeg\")
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