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solonavi 16 July 2007 Coral Reefs 137 views No Comment Print This Post  Email This Post

reuters

Australia’s Great Barrier Reef might be able to survive warming sea temperatures, as a result of global warming, better than first thought because some coral algae are more heat tolerant, Australian scientists said.

Coral geneticists from the Australian Institute of Marine Science have found that many corals store several types of algae, which can improve their capacity to cope with warmer water.

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The Australian scientists said their study had found that coral has the ability to “shuffle” the algae, maximizing nutrients depending on water temperature. They discovered heat-resistant algae by examining the DNA of different types of coral.

But many marine scientists have argued that “back-up” algae were infrequent because of the small number of corals that were shown to host several types of algae.

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The Australian scientists said this “shuffle” ability might explain why coral reefs have been able to survive for thousands of years during various climate changes.

“This flexibility discovered in our research is important in understanding the past evolutionary success of these coral species and their future survival capacity in the face of a changing climate,” said van Oppen.