Fighting for the Future of Coral Reefs

Searching for extremes

Camp is among a group of researchers hunting for solutions that not only prevent further coral loss, but also encourage reefs to build resilience to withstand future stresses. Her research led her to looking in some unconventional places to see if there are already corals bucking the trend – and what we can learn from how they survive extreme conditions when other coral species don’t. 

  “For me it was asking: Are there already corals that exist in naturally hostile conditions – warm, acidic, low-oxygen environments, the exact type of environment we’re predicting the oceans to have in the future?” she says. 

Mangrove lagoons have hot, acidic and low-oxygen environments. But they also have thriving coral communities. 

“Finding corals living in these extreme mangrove environments has been a breakthrough because it gives us hope that some corals have the capacity to tolerate stress," Camp says.

She’s now studying the genetics, physiology, ecology and other factors of these corals – dubbed ‘super corals’ because of their superior tolerance to stress – to use them as blueprints for understanding coral resilience and developing techniques for translating this resilience to reef environments. 

There are a lot of factors that contribute tolerance to these super corals, Camp says. Their genetic composition is slightly different. They have unique algae that associate with them, and they acquire and use oxygen in different ways. Mangrove lagoons also have different concentrations of nutrients compared to open ocean waters, and the team is studying how these nutrients contribute to superior tolerance and if this can be replicated in reefs. 

Much of Camp’s research into super corals involves putting mangrove coral through its paces to test just how far it can be stressed before it dies. How tolerant are they to high temperatures? How acidic can water be before it has negative effects? How little oxygen is too little?

The team then takes the corals that do well under extreme conditions and analyse their DNA to isolate which genes, metabolic pathways and other factors help them survive. Super corals can also exist on regular reefs, and Emma’s team looks to try and identify these with novel technology, such as high-throughput phenomics methods. 

Corals that demonstrate high tolerance are prime candidates for propagation. The team identifies the colony where test samples originated and then implants those corals in an offshore nursery. Researchers and local divers monitor the growth of corals and work to maintain the health of these sites. The end goal is to get more of these stress-tolerant genes onto the reef.

“We set up plots to be able to track corals over time, so we can see how response to stress events or how recovery happens differently in species,” Camp says. 

Camp is also working closely with others to develop tools and processes that local practitioners can use to ensure they’re investing wisely in growing and implanting coral. 

“Normally the premise for restoration is that you remove the stress before trying to restore the environment – we don’t have that luxury with climate change intensifying stress on the reef,” Camp says.