Coral Conservation Goes Cryogenic

by Marah Hardt · 2010-09-04 08:00:00 UTC
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If you can’t save ‘em, freeze ‘em. At least that's the new approach to coral reef conservation happening here in Hawai‘i.

Researchers from the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology working in collaboration with the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute are freezing native coral cells with the hopes that cryo conservation may help resuscitate the reefs down the road. “Because frozen banked cells are viable, the frozen material can be thawed one, 50 or, in theory, even 1,000 years from now to restore a species or population," said Mary Hagedorn, a lead scientist on the project.

If you think it sounds a bit extreme or overly dramatic, just have a look at these statistics on worldwide coral declines from a 2008 NOAA report: The world has lost 19 percent of original coral reef area; another 15 percent is seriously threatened with loss within the next 10–20 years; and 20 percent is under threat of loss in 20–40 years.

Many of these threats, such as global warming and ocean acidification, aren’t going away any time soon.  So perhaps flash freezing some material with which to re-stock future reefs isn't an unrealistic doomsday approach, after all. (Though, admittedly, it’s a bit depressing to think we are really at that stage of the game.)

As reefs weather the storm of these modern-day attacks, the coral bank offers the potential for not only re-supplying new larvae to boost the population, but also of preserving genetic diversity — a crucial need for long-term species survival. To capture this DNA diversity, the coral bank isn't just collecting a few samples of each species—it aims to collect thousands of specimens.  So far, two species have been deposited: the rice coral (Montipora capitata) and the mushroom coral (Fungia scutaria).

Researchers hope this is only the beginning, and I hope this is one insurance policy that never needs implementing.  It’s always great to have a Plan B, but for now, I say the rest of us keep focusing on reducing the threats that currently jeopardize reefs. Because ultimately, these threats jeopardize survival of a whole lot more than just corals—and banking the entire ocean isn’t something any of us should bank on.

Photo credit: Courtesy of Courtney Couch

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Marah Hardt is a research scientist, writer, and consultant. She has written for Yale e360, Ecology Letters, and The American Prospect.
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