The state of Florida, which has been hit by 18 hurricanes over the last 40 years, has one of the largest barrier reefs in the world. But nearly 90% of the living coral in the Florida Keys has disappeared during that time.
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And that's why, in this spot in the ocean, the University of Miami has built something you'd normally visit on land to buy a tree or a rose bush – a nursery. Many of the corals growing here are important and threatened Florida species, like Staghorn and Elkhorn. Every diver knows you're not supposed to touch coral, so it was odd to be handed a clipper and told to start cutting off pieces. We brought the staghorn coral I cut to an area nearby called Rainbow Reef that Professor Lirman and his team began re-planting two-and-a-half years ago. He showed me how to use a special kind of cement to attach the newly cut pieces to the reef.
Ross Cunning: Right. And that's exactly what we wanna get at is the fine scale individual variation among different Elkhorn corals. Then we can use those corals to optimize restoration programs by planting more of them on the reef.Scientists are also trying to breed the most heat and disease-resistant coral together. It's called selective breeding. Liv Williamson is a biologist at the University of Miami. Her lab is filled with vats of frozen coral sperm.
Liv Williamson: This particular brain coral baby that you're holding right now is actually the offspring of a-- coral colony here in Miami that we think is resistant to disease… Liv Williamson: Yeah, in many cases I collected them as eggs or sperm. Or I put them together to fertilize them-- have been there really since-- since birth, if you will.Anderson Cooper: Because, I mean, it's not something that…Liv Williamson: I show coral baby pictures to people.
The University of Miami is developing this hybrid reef for DARPA, which is the Pentagon's research agency. The Defense Department is looking for ways to protect its many military bases near the coast, like Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida which got destroyed by Hurricane Michael in 2018, causing nearly $5 billion in damage. DARPA plans to give the University of Miami up to $20 million to build a hybrid reef off the coast of Florida within the next five years.
Professors Baker and Lirman will provide the coral on DARPA's hybrid reef, with specific goals in mind.Andrew Baker: They do and I think that reflects the-- the scale of the problem, to be honest. We know that, for example, coral reefs are going to be facing increasing warming temperatures. So, here's a project that's asking us to try to achieve what corals are gonna face in 20 to 30 years within just a five-year timeframe, and then actually go well beyond that.
There are many potential obstacles to restoring coral reefs – as Diego Lirman and his team learned after Hurricane Irma hit Florida in 2017.
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