Verdens koralrev dør. Forskere på Bahamas søger efter en chance for deres overlevelse

Våddragt lynede stadig op til hans hals fra et tidligere dyk, Ross Cunning står midt i snesevis af bidder af koraller i saltvandet og lever godt om bord på Coral Reef II, forskningsfartøjet, der ejes af hans arbejdsgiver, Chicagos Shedd Aquarium.

Han er forsker af fag, men hans værktøjer i øjeblikket er decideret lavteknologiske. Cunning har lynlås. Han har lang række klip, de lynlåse, der bruges på dybhavsfiskerigge. Midlertidigt uvidende om hans bahamiske kystomgivelser eller den konstante gyngende 80 fods båd, han fastgør de levende koralfragmenter til trinene af stigelignende strukturer, som han og hans team har lavet af PVC-rør og ledning.

Metaforisk, dyrene er kanariefugle i kulminen med klimaændringer. Bogstaveligt talt, de er staghorn koraller, hver cirka 5 centimeter lang, hver bestemt til at blive flyttet via stativerne til et åbent hav undervands børnehave som en del af forskerens eksperiment for at identificere de hårdeste, mest varmebestandige koraller, viden gjort desperat nødvendig af Jordens stadig varmere have.

"Halvdelen af ​​disse går ned igen. Halvdelen går til Bimini på stativet, "Cunning siger, med henvisning til øen tættest på Florida, hvor Bahamas farvande er varmest om sommeren, køligst om vinteren.

Mens han og hans videnskabskolleger udfører dette håbefulde bevaringsarbejde, truende fra bådens styrbord side, måske 1, 000 meter væk, er et tableau næsten for perfekt i sin mørke symbolik:et gigantisk kraftværk, der leverer elektricitet til New Providence, Bahamas' mest folkerige ø, og mammutolietankeren tøjrede lige ud for øen for at fodre den.

De er påmindelser om, hvorfor Cunnings arbejde er så vigtigt, og hvorfor det er dybt udfordrende. På trods af at jeg ved bedre, mennesker i det sidste halve århundrede har kun accelereret deres afbrænding af fossile brændstoffer. Havene opvarmes allerede hurtigt - absorberer mere end 90% af den ekstra varme, som planeten nu producerer - og selvom mennesker radikalt ændrer deres adfærd i morgen, de vil blive ved med at varme op.

Resultatet er en eksistentiel krise for koraller. Mange forskere frygter, at de lavtvandsvarianter, der danner rev, måske ikke overlever århundredet. Koralrev bygges op gennem århundreder, men kan dø i blot to på hinanden følgende somre af unormal varme. Med sådanne temperaturstigninger og de resulterende koralblegningshændelser stigende i frekvens, rev kan blive det første af planetens store økosystemer, der forsvinder. Det truer ikke kun den forbløffende biodiversitet, der får koralrev kaldet "havets regnskove, "men også de op til en milliard mennesker verden over, der er afhængige af de fordele, rev giver inden for fisk og skaldyr og turisme.

I lyset af disse trusler, Udspekuleret – ligesom snesevis af andre videnskabsmænd inden for det spirende felt af koralforskning – føles særligt presserende over hans arbejde. Det stiller deres bedste indsats og ekspertise op imod jordiske odds, der støt stiger imod dem, og på spil er udsigten til en verden uden koraller.

"Da vi bogstaveligt talt ser disse økosystemer kollapse for vores øjne, vi indser alle, at vi er nødt til at gøre noget, "siger den 35-årige South Loop-beboer, hyret af Shedd for sin koralekspertise for et år siden. "Vi kan ikke bare stå ved, og vi kan ikke stole på mere traditionelle bevaringstilgange som marine beskyttede områder. Vi kan ikke bare sige, 'Ingen fiskeri herovre, og revet bliver fint. '

"Klimaforandringerne når ud til alle rev på planeten. Så jeg tror, ​​at folk indser, at vi er nødt til at gøre alt, hvad vi kan."

På egen hånd, en koral er ikke et karismatisk dyr. Den ser næppe ud i stand til at have udrettet så meget i sin tid på Jorden. Alligevel skabte dette dyr relateret til vandmænd og søanemoner planetens største levende struktur, Australiens Great Barrier Reef, og det og andre rev er vært for mere end en fjerdedel af havets liv på trods af, at de optager mindre end 1 % af havmiljøet.

Shedd-videnskabsmanden holder et af de væsner op, han er ved at transplantere til børnehaven ud for den sydvestlige spids af New Providence. Det ligner en tynd, forrevne, rød-brun sten - et segment af sukkerbolsje lavet med rustent vand, måske, eller et særligt knudret krabbeben.

"Den hvide spids i enden er den voksende del, " han siger, peger på det lille, kødfuld, mundlig cirkel. "Det kaldes den apikale polyp" - polyppen i spidsen. "Og det vokser i begge retninger. Og så kan man se en anden gren danne sig."

Staghorn koraller vokser hurtigt og, historisk set, de voksede let. De var engang en af ​​to dominerende revbyggende koraller i det klare vand omkring de mere end 700 øer, der udgør Bahamas, hvor Shedd centrerer sin oceanografiske forskning.

Da de trivedes, disse koraller var storslåede bygherrer, hvis strukturer ikke kun understøttede havets liv, men beskyttede kyster mod orkanpåvirkning. Da de levende polypper ved dyrenes voksende spidser og algerne, der lever symbiotisk i dem, trak næringsstoffer fra solen og vandet og strakte sig hele tiden udad, skeletterne bagved hærdet til calciumcarbonat og blev til revstruktur og, til sidst, blødgjort igen til sand.

Nu er staghorn i denne region på omkring 3% af sin tidligere overflod, en National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration rapport skøn. Mens tidligere ødelæggelser fandt sted hovedsageligt på grund af forurening og sygdom, nu opvarmende oceaner og den deraf følgende blegning er truslen nr. 1 mod denne allerede kritisk truede art.

"Vi har mistet så meget af staghorn-korallen, " siger Cunning. "I Bimini, for eksempel, hvor vi skal hen næste gang der er kun to kendte genetiske individer af staghorn-koral der, som vi har været i stand til at finde."

Udspekuleret klargør fem stativer af hjortehornet, 60 eksemplarer, som han og andre dykkere vil bære ned, 40 fod under havets overflade, til koralplanteskolen nedenfor.

Mens disse dyr overvåges og måles for at teste deres modstandsdygtighed i de kommende år, måske blandt dem vil være den håbede "superkoral, "et eksemplar, hvis genetik er så robust, at det kan hjælpe denne vitale og overraskende komplekse skabning med at overleve de kommende kriseår og komme ud på den anden side.

Udspekuleret – præcis som hans pæne røde skæg, mere analytiker end digter - kan ikke lide at tale om "superkoraller, "selvom det er en af ​​de drastiske midler, videnskaben nu søger.

"Jeg prøver at undgå at sige det, " siger han. "Det er noget af et indlæst udtryk" - upræcist og, som han tilføjer, "reduktionistisk." Han mener, det er vigtigt at komme videre ved at udføre videnskaben. Men han tillader sig selv en lille note af fest.

"Efter dette næste dyk, denne børnehave vil være fuldt befolket og komplet, hvilket er spændende, " meddeler han.

Minutter senere, holder sin dykkermaske til ansigtet med den ene hånd og en af ​​stigerne surret med levende koraller i den anden, han går fra bådens bagplatform, et lille skridt ind i det smukke, skrøbelig, skiftende vand.

Det var ved Great Barrier Reef, at Cunning udviklede sin kærlighed til koraller. Han voksede op i Indianapolis, men hans bachelor-semester i udlandet fra Duke University tog ham til Australien, til et videnskabeligt forskningsprogram centreret om et af Jordens naturlige vidundere.

De studerende deler deres studietid mellem rev og regnskov, han husker, og for ham var det et nemt valg.

"Vi var ude på Great Barrier Reef og lærte om disse økosystemer, mens vi snorklede hele dagen hver dag, " husker han. "Jeg lærte at dykke der og blev bare blæst væk af koralrevs økosystemer. Jeg var bare helt fascineret og besluttede mig for at gøre en karriere med at studere dem. "

Uddannet Duke med en hovedfag i biologi og miljøvidenskab, fortsatte han med at opnå sin ph.d. i marinbiologi og økologi fra University of Miami. Fellowships for at fortsætte sine koralstudier fulgte på Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology og derefter på UMiami igen.

Hans forskning har mest handlet om forholdet mellem koraller og algerne, der lever i dem, især på den påvirkning, som varme kan have. En undersøgelse i maj, han stod i spidsen for, var, han siger, "en mulighed for at levere et mere konkret bevaringsbudskab." Den fandt ud af, at et større havneprojekt i Port of Miami for at imødekomme containerskibe i overstørrelse havde dræbt over en halv million koraller inden for en kvart kilometer fra kanalen, et betydeligt tab i den stat, der er vært for det kontinentale USA's eneste tæt på kysten af ​​revet. Statens rev var allerede mindsket med omkring 70% siden 1970'erne.

Så da Shedd annoncerede efter en koralforsker til at runde sit caribiske forskerhold, Cunning var en stærk kandidat. Han havde ledt efter en akademisk stilling, han siger, men han elskede ideen om at kunne fortsætte med at lave hård videnskab i en institution, der også forsøger at kommunikere den videnskab direkte til offentligheden.

"Jeg troede ikke at studere koraller ville bringe mig tilbage til Midtvesten, "Snedighed siger, med et grin.

Akvariet er en af ​​Chicagos mest populære turistattraktioner, men få af de næsten 2 millioner årlige besøgende indser, at det er mere end et menageri og bruger mere end 3 millioner dollars årligt på sit feltforskningshold. Sheddens anvendte videnskabelige indsats er blevet fokuseret i de seneste år under administrerende direktør Bridget Coughlin, selv en ph.d. inden for anvendt biokemi, at have en gruppe, der studerer lokalt ferskvandsliv, og den anden arbejder på Bahamas, et uafhængigt land, der spænder omkring 600 miles øst for det sydlige Florida.

Deres stramme linse på bahamansk havliv udnytter det Miami-baserede Coral Reef II, bestilt af Shedd i 1984 til indsamling af havliv til udstilling tilbage i Chicago, men for længst genbrugt til videnskab, en konvertering, der afspejler den forandring, zoologiske haver og akvarier har foretaget hen imod bevaring. Denne gruppe af saltvandsforskere studerede allerede skabninger langs fødekæden fra kegler til leguaner til gruppere til hajer. At tilføje koraller i den lave ende gav mening, Coughlin siger, på grund af korallers enorme betydning i havmiljøet og for Bahamas og som en klimaforandringsklokke.

"Det er et fantastisk ægteskab med noget, offentligheden forstår - koralblegning, temperaturen i havet stiger - og en stor videnskabelig indsats, " Coughlin siger. "Det, vi gør på stedet (er) at engagere mennesker med dyr og derefter ekstrapolere det til ude i naturen, og hvordan Shedd kan bidrage til løsningen."

Cunnings aha-øjeblikke på Great Barrier Reef kom tidligt i dette århundrede, før mange mennesker fuldt ud indså truslen fra den mindskede atmosfæriske beskyttelse mod solen. Nu er det australske revsystem, som det mest berømte koralrev i verden, er blevet et anderledes undervisningsredskab, en hvis forfald er nedskrevet i et forsøg på at vække offentligheden til koralkrisen.

Nu er det rutine, også, at finde billeder i nyhedshistorier om krisen med teksten "døde koralrev, "morose tableauer, hvor der ikke er flere farverige fisk og eksotisk formede koraller, kun pjattet, opportunistiske alger, der dækker den ujævne, besejrede skeletrester.

De videnskabelige undersøgelser og rapporter om forsvindende koraller og varmere vand omkring dem hober sig op, og selv de typisk tørre titler på en sådan skrift antyder situationens hastende karakter. "Uovertrufne 3 års global koralblegning, 2014–2017." "Risikofølsom planlægning for bevaring af koralrev under hurtige klimaændringer." "Dekadale ændringer i varmetolerante koralsymbiioner." Den sidste er en arbejdstitel for en af ​​Cunnings aktuelle koralundersøgelser.

Dokumentarfilmen "Chasing Coral" fra 2017 vandt en Emmy. Det er af de samme mennesker, som lavede "Chasing Ice" fem år tidligere og på samme måde fortæller om en søgen efter en forsvindende ressource, der er fundamental for planeten. (Det er på Netflix.)

På Shedd Aquariums Wild Reef-udstilling, en spektakulær hyldest til $ 40 plus millioner til de mangfoldighedsrev, der åbnede i 2003, du vil læse, at udfordringen til koralrev hovedsageligt kommer fra forurening og andre direkte menneskelige påvirkninger. Global opvarmning bliver kun nævnt i en lille og nyere del af udstillingen, der fortæller om den videnskab, akvariet understøtter; en af ​​Cunnings opgaver ved hjemkomsten fra sin forskningsrejse er at opdatere det afsnit yderligere.

Men selvom videnskaben akkumuleres og filtreres ud i offentligheden mere støt, det kan stadig være svært at få folk til at være opmærksomme på det engagementsniveau, videnskabsmænd siger, at problemet kræver.

"Jeg tror, ​​at folk bare ikke forstår vigtigheden af ​​havet. Det er helt 'ude af syne og ude af sind, " siger Richard Vevers, en adman-vendende ivrig naturbevaringsmand, som er en af ​​stjernerne i "Chasing Coral".

"Dette er første gang i menneskehedens historie, hvor vi har været på randen af ​​at miste et økosystem i planetarisk skala, og det er uden tvivl den mest mangfoldige på planeten og en af ​​de mest værdifulde, siger Vevers, der driver sit 50 Reefs-initiativ ud af Rhode Island, sigter mod at lede bevaringsindsatsen ind i rev, der kan reddes. "Men det er den første, fordi de (koraller) kun virkelig kan klare en temperaturstigning på omkring 1,5 grader Celsius, før du har mistet næsten dem alle."

I 2014 halvdelen af ​​verdens koralrev – og, igen, næsten alle staghorn-koraller på Bahamas - var allerede gået tabt, til en kombination af sygdom, forurening, overfiskeri og varmestress, forklarede Mark Eakin, koordinator for NOAA's Coral Reef Watch-program, i et 2017 online seminar.

Så kom den treårige globale koralblegningsbegivenhed, et ubønhørligt angreb på korallers evne til at reagere på stress, der chokerede selv de mest pessimistiske videnskabsmænd på grund af dets hidtil usete varighed.

Ved blegning, levende koraller bliver hvide i en reaktion, der ligner chok, og er. The coral react to the perceived crisis of too-high temperatures by expelling the algae that live within them and give them color and help them feed. They can often recover from single bleaching events, but when the white-outs happen repeatedly, many will die.

The local impact in the Bahamas has been obvious, says Shelley Cant-Woodside, director of science and policy for the Bahamas National Trust, a local NGO advising Bahamian government on conservation policy.

"Almost every year we're reporting coral bleaching whereas before it would have been once every five years, every 10 years, " she says. "More and more after each bleaching event, you are seeing areas where the majority of the coral cover has gone. Then it gets dominated by algae. Reefs where you had towers of elkhorn coral and staghorn coral, where you used to have these mushroom forests, have basically become rubble. Once they die, there's nothing really continuing to grow. When hurricanes come they flatten it out a bit. It becomes this downward spiral."

Globalt, the first widespread bleaching event came in 1983, the result of an El Nino weather pattern that pushed exceptionally warm waters into the temperate, shallow zones where reefs develop. Then came one in 1998, and then again in 2010. But they were only precursors to the events of mid-decade.

"The 36-month heatwave and global bleaching event were exceptional in a variety of ways, " says the 2018 NOAA report titled "Unprecedented 3 years of global coral bleaching, 2014–2017." "For many reefs, this was the first time on record that they had experienced bleaching in two consecutive years."

Many South Pacific reefs experienced their worst-ever bleaching, and "reefs in the northern part of Australia's Great Barrier Reef that had never bleached before lost nearly 30% of their shallow water corals in 2016, while reefs a bit farther south lost another 22% in 2017, " it continues.

"All told, more than 75% of Earth's tropical reefs experienced bleaching-level heat stress between 2014 and 2017, and at nearly 30% of reefs, it reached mortality level."

And as a baseline, even before heat spikes, global ocean temperatures are about three-quarters of a degree warmer than a century ago, NOAA's Eakin said in the web seminar.

I 2050, han sagde, "90% of the coral reefs around the world are going to be suffering from the kind of heat stress that causes bleaching on an annual basis, and that's just not sustainable. If coral bleaching keeps happening over and over, it's like having forest fires come through where forest fires have already come through."

In the face of such facts, doomsday thinking is hard to avoid.

The Atlantic two years ago, right after the series of bleaching events, published an article headlined, "How Coral Researchers Are Coping With the Death of Reefs:The drumbeat of devastating news can take its toll on the mental health of people who have devoted their lives to coral."

But scientists, også, can rally against repeated stresses and find reasons to be optimistic. All the dire forecasts "do not necessarily take into account the fact that coral may be able to acclimate or climatize or have some innate resilience, " says Andrea Grottoli, president of the International Coral Reef Society and professor of earth sciences at the Ohio State University. "So being able to identify resilience is critical."

The goals are, in a sense, modest:"to act as a bridge, " hun siger, "and maintain enough reef ecosystem function so that by the time we do get climate change under control and conditions on reefs start to improve, there's enough reef, there's enough coral there, to propagate them going forward."

Coral conservation and restoration efforts "have not always been guided by science, " hun siger, but thanks to a growing body of research like Cunning's, "that gap is narrowing."

And there is little choice because, as Grottoli puts it, "doing nothing ensures complete failure."

So pretty much wherever researchers study coral, there is work taking place to restore reefs, to identify resilient animals, to breed them more efficiently and get them to grow more quickly.

"There is a very intense sense of urgency around these activities, " says Cunning, "There is a lot of hope, otherwise people wouldn't be doing it."

The sun is out and the Caribbean is calm on this October Tuesday, a perfect afternoon for strapping on the scuba gear. A dive boat from a local Sandals resort has settled in between the Coral Reef II and the oil tanker, likely offering its dive tourists a look at an oft-visited wreck, a boat sunk on purpose for the Bond film "Never Say Never Again, " and at a jaw-dropping bit of underwater geography.

"That's the wall right over there, the Tongue of the Ocean. It dips off to six-and-a-half thousand feet right there, " explains Hayley-Jo Carr, a native Brit and longtime dive instructor-turned-full-time coral conservationist with the Perry Institute for Marine Science, one of the Shedd's local Bahamian partners.

Almost directly below the aquarium's vessel, the Perry Institute's Reef Rescue Network has established the coral nursery where Cunning's transplanted staghorns will be placed. It's a tranquil, sandy, almost featureless location that gives no clue of the great precipice looming nearby. The nurseries themselves are as DIY as the transport racks Cunning built:This one is a stand of 11 floating trees made of white plastic PVC pipe anchored to the ocean floor. Each tree holds 50 fragments of staghorn coral dangling from the branches via fishing line, waiting for the moment when they will be moved to an existing reef in hopes of re-establishing staghorns in these waters.

Cunning, Carr and a third diver, Valeria Pizarro, a research associate at the Perry Institute originally from Colombia, kick downward, then spend the next half-hour moving the fragments from the ladders onto the trees. Viewed from a snorkeler's distance at the surface, they look like farm laborers who happen to have compressed air tanks on their backs.

As they work, a Caribbean reef shark sashays slowly by, not showing much interest in the science or the people conducting it. The divers tag each coral specimen, measure it, and take a picture so there will be a baseline for comparison as local divers chart their growth in coming months and years. They use waterproof note-taking devices that resemble an Etch-A-Sketch children's toy.

"Got corals up. Took corals down. Measured corals. Photographed corals, " Cunning, back on board, explains to a colleague. "Now we're done."

This is the conclusion of one round in an elaborate game of musical chairs. The design of Cunning's "big reciprocal transplantation experiment, " as he puts it, has seen him move 570 coral chunks among four locations.

"We want to find which corals are going to do the best as our oceans warm, " Cunning says. "That's the big advantage of being able to spread these identical coral fragments across this big temperature gradient. Transplantation on this scale to my knowledge has not been attempted before."

"It makes it a unique trip, " adds John Parkinson, the University of South Florida marine biologist working with Cunning on the research. "The idea of moving corals around big distances, you can't fake."

It's possible to do such an experiment, the scientists note, precisely because the Shedd—unlike virtually any of its peers—maintains its own boat.

The Coral Reef II is more plow horse than show pony, but even if it can't run fast, it can run steady and it can run in relatively shallow waters.

The big boat hosts two motorboats that buzz out to reefs or other daily research locations. All across the main deck are a range of live wells, small tanks that can hold live specimens. On this trip, with only the biggest wells toward the back in use to ferry the staghorns around, those on the port side serve as storage tanks for extra diving gear.

Time on such a vessel is precious and Cunning and the others on board are making full use of this two-week trip.

Tidligere, he and the team took biopsies of coral on a set of reefs off of Lee Stocking Island, in the Exuma Islands archipelago to the east of New Providence, snipping tissue samples as they dove and depositing them in individual plastic envelopes for later study. They did this because 24 years before, one of the scientists who was on board earlier—Andrew Baker, who was Cunning's doctoral thesis adviser at Miami—had sampled the same reef.

"We collected the same number of the same species of coral from the same reef, " Cunning says. "We now have fully comparable datasets."

Having such an apples-to-apples comparison is a rarity, and it will allow Baker and Cunning to determine whether the corals' algae have changed over that time period:"Has there been any increase in thermally tolerant symbionts?" han spørger. In other words:Are the algae and their coral hosts adapting to warmer waters on their own?

A third, ongoing project, er, i det væsentlige, a coral sampling extravaganza. Taking DNA biopsies whenever he gets the opportunity, which the divers do by using a very specific human cosmetic device to snip no more of the polyp than a parrotfish might bite off, Cunning is building a database of coral from across the Bahamas, specimens that he will bring back to Shedd and analyze in the on-site genetics lab, in part to track what he calls "genetic flow."

"We use Revlon Gold heavy-duty toenail clippers, " he says with a smile. That brand seems to hold up best to being used underwater.

Also on board is Shedd researcher Andy Kough, taking advantage of the fact that spiny lobsters, one of the species he studies, can be found in the vicinity of corals. "My normal move is conchs, " says the effervescent Kough, who shares an office with Cunning back in Chicago, "but since (Ross) is going to reefs, lobsters love reefs."

While the captain, first mate and cook take care of everyone's seafaring and nutritional needs, a Shedd aquarist who grew up in Oak Park and two University of Miami graduate students help the Shedd scientists; the latters' deep orange "UMiami Scientific Diving" swim shirts are the envy of most everyone aboard. Shayle Matsuda, a University of Hawaii doctoral student originally from Evanston, joined the trip to conduct his own research on corals.

And the Shedd's dive program manager, Amanda Weiler, is aboard, også, supervising the dives, recording tank pressure levels and the like, as she is on hand to do, she explains, on any dive-heavy trip.

"The Shedd was, like, my dream growing up, " Matsuda tells her.

"Mine, too!" Weiler, a native of Spring Grove, Ill., exclaims. "Wild Reef was my 'aha' moment."

There are 13 people aboard, not counting two visiting journalists and a PR representative, and the 14-or-more-hour days move in a steady rhythm of breakfast, dives, lunch, dives and more dives, dinner and then, at night, pulling out the laptops to record data collected during the day.

On Tuesday evening, after the corals have been transplanted off of New Providence, the boat begins the journey around the island to anchor overnight to the west, near the Exumas, a location particularly popular with tourists who have boats because of the protected marine national park and the sheer number of islands to visit.

Dinner—flank steak, gnocchi with peas, buttered carrots and cherry cheesecake, all prepared in the boat's galley—has been cleared, and the boat is underway. As the diesel engine thrums below decks, the laptops come out. Carr is doing a Facebook post on behalf of the Perry Institute. A crossword book somebody brought gets passed around.

A researcher copying underwater photos via the cabin's sole desktop computer shouts, "Dendro!"

"Dendrogyra is very rare and endangered in Florida, " explains Parkinson, the USF professor, "but there's a lot of it here. We get excited."

The common name of dendrogyra cylindrus is pillar coral, for the way the species grows upward, like clusters of cactus. On a Shedd research trip to the Exumas in the spring, Cunning says, he saw a group of dendrogyra that he calls "probably the coolest coral colony I've ever seen.

"It was by far the largest individual pillar coral colony I've seen—like, by orders of magnitude, " he later elaborates. "It would probably take five minutes to swim all around it. I had no idea they could even get that big."

He biopsied it, of course.

In light of the challenges facing coral, such notes of encouragement take on magnified importance. Cunning mentions the big news that the Florida Aquarium, in Tampa, recently announced it had successfully induced pillar coral to spawn in captivity.

It was a world-first that could be crucial in saving the species from extinction, said Roger Germann, the former Shedd executive who now runs the Florida Aquarium, in announcing the breeding success.

The scientists on board have been encouraged, også, de siger, by the release of "Chasing Coral" and the positive reception it's received. "I think most people know, " says Matsuda. "They know what coral bleaching is, whereas 10 years ago ... "

But hanging over everything is a throbbing question.

It will be explained in stark terms later, in a phone interview, by Phillip Dustan, a veteran reef scientist at the College of Charleston who worked with famed oceanographer Jacques Cousteau in the 1970s and was featured in "Chasing Coral."

"They want to replant the reef and regenerate the reef?" Dustan says. "That'll be great until it gets hot again, and then they'll die."

On board the Coral Reef II, the researchers are all too aware of this dilemma—that maybe in the most narrow-eyed analysis the action that will do coral the most good is to devote all of one's efforts to slowing down the planet's warming.

Carr frames it directly. Research and conservation efforts like her organization's Reef Rescue Network around the Bahamas and Cunning's efforts to find heat-resistant coral are important, hun siger, to help the animals survive what is coming. "'It's a race to increase resilience, " hun siger.

Men, hun siger, "All of that is still in vain if we don't address climate change. We are one part of a huge research community. We're doing everything we can. But the (primary) thing that will save them is mitigating climate change."

The summer of 2019 was oppressive, the warmest she's experienced in a decade in the Bahamas.

"It was just too hot, " Carr says. "We need to find that supercoral, ret, Ross?"

The patch reef is more beautiful than its name would imply, a swirling oasis of life centered on a mobile-home-sized coral mound in the clear waters of the Yellow Bank, a rarely navigated region between the Exumas and New Providence.

Cunning spotted these reefs from a small airplane last year. He knew he wanted to return and visit them up close because "they're in the middle of a very large, shallow bank where the water can heat up more quickly than the deeper waters surrounding it, " he says. "But despite those higher temperatures, the area is full of these patch reefs.

"If they've been adapting to this warm place for a very long time now, we can essentially ask them, How did you do it? We can query their genomes and now start to understand genetically how they have adapted to live in warmer places."

But as Wednesday morning breaks he has to wait to even get there because these can be treacherous waters, precisely because of the patch reefs. The boat's captain won't move into their vicinity until the sun is high enough that he can clearly see the coral heads below the ocean's surface.

"I love the fact of, How many people do you think have ever been to these random little specks of reef?" says Kough, Cunning's Shedd colleague. "Probably not many."

As the boat waits on the sun, the scientists ready their instruments. In addition to taking biopsies for DNA samples, Cunning and the team will also plant devices, known by their "HOBO" tradename, that periodically log water temperatures and can be retrieved later.

And they will test a new, $30, 000 device on loan from its German manufacturer that uses light to measure coral health non-invasively. About the size of two two-liter soda bottles end-to-end, it will be aimed at coral to take readings and, as one scientist put it, "see if we can figure out a metric to see if they're bleaching before they bleach."

Cunning talks with his fellow divers as the sun reaches the necessary height and the vessel begins picking its way toward the target reefs.

"Your mission will be to find a patch reef, " he tells Brendan Wylie, the Shedd aquarist from Oak Park, who cares for coral in his job at the aquarium.

"Should I care to accept it, " Wylie responds, quoting "Mission:Impossible."

"You have to accept it, " says Cunning, laughing. As lead researcher on this trip, he is in charge of the science, just as the captain is in charge of the boat. "So find 20 to 30 samples and deploy a HOBO."

In a few minutes, Kough steps into the room, excited. "Patches!" he announces.

They are called patch reefs because they dot the sandy sea floor like adornments sewn randomly onto a jacket. Almost as soon as Coral Reef II can drop anchor—being careful not to strike a reef—Cunning and three other divers are down under, giving their target a thorough exam.

"The corals on the Yellow Bank looked pretty good, " Cunning will say later. "They were nice reefs. They had high coral cover, maybe 40% or even higher. There's still a pretty good diversity and the corals were healthy there, " not actively bleaching like the team observed in some earlier dive areas on the trip.

There are no staghorn, but here and on nearby reefs are almost two dozen other coral species, most prominently the mountainous star coral and the mustard hill coral, unimpressive in its lumpen, yellow appearance but known to be one of the most stress-tolerant of Caribbean corals.

Around them is a seemingly thriving little biosphere. Tucked into a sort of cave is a spiny lobster, the target of the Bahamas' biggest fishing industry, identifiable by its spotted body and hide-and-seek nature. The sponges that resemble badly-thrown pottery are called, naturally enough, vase sponges; glazed in earthy green and scattered atop the reef, they look like the early days of someone's new craft hobby.

Gloriously striped little fish dart in and out of the hollows, their quickness a reminder of their place in the food chain. Looking like a particularly maladapted school of fish themselves, Cunning and his fellow black-suited divers move more slowly, pinching and probing, on their way to collecting 146 DNA samples from four such reefs. Their exhaled breath rises in silver bubbles, breaking at the surface 15 or so feet above and just a few kicks away from the back platform of the research vessel.

Swimming around this reef is like getting a window into a time when coral reefs were abundant and relatively unthreatened. This one has been chosen to offer its secrets to scientists who would protect it for the future. But it is, igen, a speck in the ocean, a patch applied to a very big problem.

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