The coral reef is in fact only a portion of the total environment in the tropical ocean. It really begins with the mangrove forest. Trees that have evolved adaptations to high salinity content and partial submersion. Aquatic organisms often begin here as larvae and migrate through the sea grass beds and finally to the coral reefs. Even of these three environments, not counting the deep sea, there exist endemic species. This is called beta diversity.

Back to coral reefs…

The primary threats to coral reefs are thermal pollution, over fishing, and disease. All of these factors cause coral and fish decline. Why should people care about this? In fact, many coral reefs are connected to fish populations that are harvested for human consumption and coral reefs are responsible for the same amount of carbon sequestration(airborne carbon going into the ground) as temperate forests.

To restore the coral reefs require knowing its ecological processes. Coral have preferences for density, sunlight, and temperature. They begin life as microscopic larvae(think sea jelly) and attach to rock substrate where they will spend the rest of their lives. They compete with sponges, algae, and other coral for space like any forest, but are habitat for more sea life than algae.

Our visiting professor, Mark Ladd from UCSB, has studied how herbivory of algae by fish is likely the largest factor in maintaining reef biodiversity. Without herbivores algae are able to grow and out compete coral.

During this lecture, Mark has shown us a photo from 1955 in Cuba, where a thin man on vacation caught a 9 foot fish and posed with his family. Adjacent to this photo is one of today’s sports fishermen, who were at least 300 pounds each and whose trophy catches were 5 – 10 inches long. No science here, but an interesting observation on fishing. Fish have been getting smaller and humans larger?

So how does Mark restore coral reefs? In fact it is easy. Avoid spreading disease, solve rising sea temperatures and build an underwater coral plantation. Mark along with Coral Restoration Foundation (coralrestoration.org) has been growing endangered coral and using his studies on coral density and population preferences, has been regrowing coral in Florida and along the southern coast of the United States.

For this project the saying, “If you build it they will come” has been accurate. Reforesting the sea floor with coral allows sea organisms such as fish and urchins to repopulate them and restore the ecology of these reefs. And Marks research has also shown if corals live well adjacent to other corals or sponges, so he and the CRF know how to build a mosaic on the sea floor that will not obliterate itself.

However the same problems we began with exist for Mark’s corals. Since the construction of the Panama canal and regular international shipping, disease flows easily between the global oceans and threatens not to leave the 10 percent of an immune population. Warming temperatures raise the regularity and length of coral bleaching and allows invasive species to migrate.

Mark, at least, has chosen that to save the ocean ecosystem he must mold the reef in his own image, that is to say, learn which genotypes present in corals allow for disease immunity and thermal tolerance and breed them into his farm. He has done this with corals already and intends to continue on this path. It is a radical step, modifying life in your opinion of “right” or necessity. I wonder when we will begin to modify all of the forests to perform more efficient carbon sequestration or breed for drought tolerance in trees that had once lived in wet ecosystems.
We already breed and even genetically modify our crops and livestock and even ourselves to some extent. With the knowledge of biology and genetics, the whole world may one day be made not in God’s image, but for certain in Man’s.
There may even come days when genes themselves become patented property. I lied, they already have, and evolution becomes less of a natural phenomenon over eons, and more of an artificial one made over a few generations.