APOLLO BEACH, Fla. — Scientists at The Florida Aquarium have added 20 new coral colonies to its breeding program at its Apollo Beach campus amid coral conservation concerns, a news release explains.
The elkhorn coral, which traveled all the way from the Florida Keys, is the latest step taken by the team to address issues like coral bleaching.
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection says coral bleaching happens when corals are stressed by changes in their conditions and they "expel colorful algae living in their translucent tissues," which ends up showing their white skeleton.
Waters surrounding all of Florida are currently 4-5 degrees warmer than normal this time of year, the National Weather Service said. Ocean temperatures are currently clocking 90-93 degrees around much of Florida, which is extremely warm.
“The severe bleaching event happening on Florida’s Coral Reef is disheartening for all of us who work diligently to protect and restore these corals,” Keri O’Neil, director and senior scientist for The Florida Aquarium’s Coral Conservation Program, said in a statement. “Our ability to not only protect the corals in our care but also to spawn them and rear thousands of offspring is more important than ever given the latest environmental threats these animals are facing in the wild.
"We will not give up on our coral conservation efforts in these challenging times.”
The breeding problem, for the first time, will attempt to produce more heat-tolerate elkhorn coral offspring. As record-breaking warm water temperatures continue impacting corals in the ocean, scientists relocated corals into climate-controlled land-based care centers or deeper and cooler ocean locations, the aquarium detailed in a statement.
“This critically important breeding effort can only be accomplished through collaboration between numerous coral restoration partners, which in and of itself is an extraordinary achievement,” Dr. Debborah Luke, senior vice president of conservation with The Florida Aquarium, explained in a statement.