Coral

Scientists are exploring many options when it comes to shoring up the wellbeing of coral reefs in the face of warming waters, and an international team of researchers is putting forward another possibility, showing how probiotics can boost their health and chances of survival.

Not all corals respond to bleaching events by turning ghostly white, with some instead becoming shimmering arrays of bright neon colors. The authors of a new study believe this is an attempt to lure the much-needed algae back home.

Among the potential solutions to coral bleaching and death is the idea of developing new types of coral that are more resistant to heat, and researchers in Australia are reporting new success in this area using a technique called directed evolution.

NASA is calling on citizen scientists to help identify and classify the world's corals by playing a virtual diving game, so that experts can better understand how they are evolving and how they might be best preserved for the future.

Corals serve as a host to algae, which produces sugars that the corals consume. Now, scientists have 3D-printed coral that's even more algae-friendly than its natural equivalent – it could help limit coral bleaching, and provide a source of biofuel.

New research suggests the world's coral reefs face a battle to survive in the face of warming and more acidic waters, with scientists behind the new study projecting that as much as 90 percent of them could disappear within a couple of decades.

Underwater loudspeakers could be used to revitalized devastated corals, by blasting the sounds of healthy reefs to make them more attractive to young fish. Earth’s ocean reefs are currently under major threat from human-led climate change.

Recent severe bleaching events to strike the Great Barrier Reef have led to widespread death of the corals making up world’s largest living structure, but scientists are coming up with increasingly inventive ways to repair the damage.

Scientists are looking into replacing dead and crumbling coral heads with plastic replicas, and some fish prefer them to the genuine article.

Three species of Caribbean coral are hardy enough to survive the rising levels of ocean acidification expected to take place over the next century. Whilst the corals were able to live in the unusually hostile environment, their skeletons were seriously affected, leaving them vulnerable to erosion.

In these times of coral reef die-offs, it's vitally important to monitor the abundance and variety of corals on the reefs that remain. This is currently performed visually by scuba divers, but there may soon be a quicker, cheaper and easier method – just check the water for coral DNA.

A Queensland University of Technology (QUT) team has developed the "LarvalBot" underwater robot that, for the first time, has succeeded in reseeding damaged areas of Australia's Great Barrier Reef with heat tolerant baby coral polyps to help combat the effects of predators and climate change.