Gates Lab Seeks Climate Resilient Super Corals via Assisted Evolution

Summary: A Vulcan Inc. grant is funding a project for breeding climate resilient super corals via assisted evolution by University of Hawaii-Manoa's Gates Lab.

In Kaneohe Bay off Oahu's northeast coast, Coconut Island is one of two sites experimenting with assisted evolution to develop climate resilient super corals; in popular culture, shots of Coconut Island were featured in opening sequence of late 60s hit TV series, Gilligan's Island: Forest & Kim Starr, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Ruth Gates, director of University of Hawaii at Manoa’s Institute of Marine Biology on Oahu’s Coconut Island, is applying her portion of a five-year, $3.9 million grant from Vulcan Inc. to breeding super corals, resilient to global warming and ocean acidification, via assisted evolution.

The funded project immediately unfolds in summer 2015 as Dr. Gates’ research team identifies resilient coral in northeastern Oahu's Kaneohe Bay and extracts samples from the reef for relocation to controlled, assisted evolution conditions of increasing exposure to hotter and more acidic water in the Gates Lab. To develop biological stocks of climate resilient super corals, the technique of assisted evolution subjects the specimens with hardiest responses to stressful environments with the aim of passing on accelerated adaptation traits to coral offspring. The team will transplant successful strains back in Kaneohe Bay early in 2016 in advance of Hawaii’s coral spawning season from June through August.

“Not all corals are created equal,” Dr. Gates explains. “We will capitalize on those corals that already show a stronger ability to withstand the changing ocean environment and their capacity to pass this resilience along to new generations.”

Dr. Gates estimates that bleaching has affected 60 to 80 percent of the coral in Kaneohe Bay in 2015. As sites of first appearance in summer 2014 for the ongoing third global bleaching, Hawaii’s reefs are threatened by a second consecutive year of devastatingly widespread bleaching.

As a symptom of environmental stress, coral reefs exhibit bleached appearances as they expel zooxanthellae (zo-zan-THELL-ee), the vivid algae that account for coral coloring. The symbiotic, or mutually beneficial, relationship of algae residing in coral tissues and feeding coral hosts with the photosynthetic by-product of sugar takes a toxic turn with the substitution of harmful free radicals for sugar in response to rising water temperatures.

In February 2014 the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation awarded $10,000 as the top prize in the 2013 Paul G. Allen Ocean Challenge to Dr. Gates and Madeleine van Oppen of the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) for their concept of increased coral reef resilience to mitigate the environmental impacts of ocean acidification. As winners, the research duo were invited to submit a full grant proposal for research project funding of their concept by Vulcan Inc., the Foundation’s parent company founded in 1986 by Microsoft co-founder Paul Gardner Allen.

In June 2015, Vulcan Inc. awarded the Pacific Ocean-based team with a $3.9 million, five-year grant to reverse coral reef decline via assisted evolution. The Gates Lab conducts experiments in Hawaii while Dr. van Oppen directs coral breeding at National Sea Simulator (SeaSim), the world-class tropical marine research center located on the AIMS headquarter campus at North Queensland’s Cape Ferguson.

As Gates Lab in Hawaii and SeaSim in Australia strive to develop climate resilient super corals through the promising, scalable technique of assisted evolution, Thomas Oliver, marine biologist and team leader at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Coral Reef Ecosystem Division, underlines the project’s urgency: “The question is not can they do it, it’s can they do it fast enough?”

super corals growing in Ruth Gates's lab at Hawai‘i Institute of Marine Biology, Kāne‘ohe Bay, O‘ahu: Hollie Putnam @HolliePutnam via Twitter Nov. 5, 2015

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

Kaneohe Bay: Forest and Kim Starr, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Starr_060228-8947_Aerial_photograph_of_Hawaii.jpg

super corals growing in Ruth Gates's lab at Hawai‘i Institute of Marine Biology, Kāne‘ohe Bay, O‘ahu: Hollie Putnam‏ @HolliePutnam via Twitter Nov. 5, 2015, @ https://twitter.com/HolliePutnam/status/662192373833707520

For further information:

Associated Press. "Creating 'Super Coral' to Save Dying Coral Reefs." YouTube. Nov. 4, 2015.
Available @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtCDquEYzPE

D'Angelo, Chris. "Scientists Are Breeding 'Super Corals' To Save Reefs From Global Warming." HuffPost Science. Nov. 9, 2015.
Available @ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/scientists-breeding-super-corals-in-attempt-to-save-worlds-reefs_563fa821e4b0411d30716868

Hollie Putnam‏ @HolliePutnam. "#CoralAssistedEvolution to grow #SuperCoral and fight #climatechange." Twitter. Nov. 5, 2015.
Available @ https://twitter.com/HolliePutnam/status/662192373833707520

Jones, Caleb. "Scientists tinker with evolution to save Hawaii coral reefs." AP > The Big Story. Nov. 5, 32015.
Available @ http://bigstory.ap.org/article/e0313f73cea244e9917f4cb1ffc9f316/scientists-tinker-evolution-save-hawaii-coral-reefs

Jones, Nicola. "As Ocean Waters Heat Up, A Quest to Create 'Super Corals.'" Yale University environment360 > Report. Aug. 4, 2015.
Available @ http://e360.yale.edu/feature/as_ocean_waters_heat_up_a_quest_to_create_super_corals/2900/

Ogliore, Talia S. "Scientist wins international Ocean Challenge." University of Hawai'i News Release. Oct. 15, 2013.
Available @ http://www.hawaii.edu/news/article.php?aId=6052

ThinkTech Hawaii. "Assisted Evolution to Coral Adaptation -- Ruth Gates and Madeleine van Oppen." YouTube. Feb. 24, 2014.
Available @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEYaVkaBoXM

Trifonovitch, Kelli. "Coral reef resiliency research draws high-profile investments." University of Hawai'i Systems News. Nov. 5, 2015.
Available @ http://www.hawaii.edu/news/2015/11/05/breeding-corals-to-withstand-future-ocean-conditions-focus-of-world-class-research/

van Oppen, Madeleine J.H., et al. "Building coral reef resilience through assisted evolution." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 112, no. 8 (Feb. 24, 2015): 2307-2313.
Available @ http://www.pnas.org/content/112/8/2307.full