FEARS that global warming will kill off the world’s coral reefs may be
misplaced.
Instead of signalling impending doom, the widespread bleaching of reefs may
be a risky gamble by corals to adapt to warmer seas, according to a marine
biologist in New York. When the going gets tough, corals ditch their symbiotic
algae to find partners better suited to their new surroundings.
Reef-building corals contain single-celled algae that photosynthesise in
return for their lodging. But this partnership is precarious—if light or
temperature change for any length of time, the corals often evict their algae.
As the lodgers contain…
