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Scientists successfully breed corals to improve their heat tolerance

phys.org

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Re: Scientists successfully breed corals to improve their heat tolerance

#61

Post by candiddevmike »

MarkMarine wrote: post #9

I’ve been scuba diving for 20 years and I’ve seen the devastation first hand. Once healthy eco systems, teeming with life, just completely wiped out. It’s heartbreaking. Corals grow so slowly, this might improve things 100-200 years from now, which is not nothing, but no one should delude themselves into thinking this is a solution. The fish that depend on these reefs will not be able to wait 100 generations for us t…

Have you stopped scuba diving? Aren't you concerned that your scuba diving contributes to the destruction?

Re: Scientists successfully breed corals to improve their heat tolerance

#62

Post by verisimi »

glenstein wrote: post #28
delecti wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kinda agree with the GP that this seems weird. Yes, ocean temps are rising very quickly, but this experiment only took 5 years, and was presumably a only a tiny fraction of how many wild coral there are. Ocean warming has taken place over several decades, and with millions of times as large of a natural population. It just seems weird that, if this kinda of adaptation is possible (and they showed it is), it wouldn'…

In nature, you don't necessarily have the needed genetic diversity or controlled conditions, in the right combinations, the way you can obtain them in the lab. And "several decades" is probably not enough time in evolutionary terms to adjust, if I had to guess.

Nature doesn't have the right conditions to deal with the changes in nature?

Re: Scientists successfully breed corals to improve their heat tolerance

#63

Post by IdSayThatllDoIt »

glenstein wrote: post #33
IdSayThatllDoIt wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxidation_Event We live on a planet saturated in one of the most corrosive pollutants (to life that evolved before it). If an anaerobic intelligent life had evolved before the world was conquered by cyanobacteria, in a society with a profit motive for manufacturing sugar, would they have farmed the very thing that would wipe them out?

Right, and said slightly differently: this is the context against which we have to judge whether there was any natural experiment we can refer to. There's no reason to think that the history of life on earth thus far has presented a sufficiently comparable case, to reassure us that what's happening is a re-run of a familiar event we've already seen, where everything works out well.

Yes that is nicely concise, but in addition I was trying to say that the line of reasoning that life has persisted through cataclysmic environmental changes and therefore worrying about them is fearmongering is a facile argument as the persistence of lichens and prototaxites etc has no bearing on the survival of humans. The nature of a cataclysm is very relative, as the oxygenation of the atmosphere and oceans would be meaningless to geochemical anaerobic bacteria that live miles below us.

We only have coal because trees grew and fell on each other for like 60 million years before anything figured out how to decompose lignin.

Re: Scientists successfully breed corals to improve their heat tolerance

#64

Post by aurizon »

MarkMarine wrote: post #9

I’ve been scuba diving for 20 years and I’ve seen the devastation first hand. Once healthy eco systems, teeming with life, just completely wiped out. It’s heartbreaking. Corals grow so slowly, this might improve things 100-200 years from now, which is not nothing, but no one should delude themselves into thinking this is a solution. The fish that depend on these reefs will not be able to wait 100 generations for us t…

Examining and quantifying the genes that give heat tolerance in the same species will allow polyp replacement - driven evolutionarily. That way they will occupy the same 'burrows' and can reform the reef more rapidly without the need for the slow growing coral skeleton?

Re: Scientists successfully breed corals to improve their heat tolerance

#65

Post by consumer451 »

candiddevmike wrote: post #61
MarkMarine wrote: post #9

I’ve been scuba diving for 20 years and I’ve seen the devastation first hand. Once healthy eco systems, teeming with life, just completely wiped out. It’s heartbreaking. Corals grow so slowly, this might improve things 100-200 years from now, which is not nothing, but no one should delude themselves into thinking this is a solution. The fish that depend on these reefs will not be able to wait 100 generations for us t…

Have you stopped scuba diving? Aren't you concerned that your scuba diving contributes to the destruction?

I am aware of only three ways that diving could affect coral.

1) Boat's anchor doing physical damage, which is why popular dive spots have mooring buoys.

2) Many popular sun screen lotions are really bad for coral.

3) Physically touching the coral can do damage, even if gently.

Are there any other factors of which I am unaware?

Re: Scientists successfully breed corals to improve their heat tolerance

#66

Post by theultdev »

candiddevmike wrote: post #61
MarkMarine wrote: post #9

I’ve been scuba diving for 20 years and I’ve seen the devastation first hand. Once healthy eco systems, teeming with life, just completely wiped out. It’s heartbreaking. Corals grow so slowly, this might improve things 100-200 years from now, which is not nothing, but no one should delude themselves into thinking this is a solution. The fish that depend on these reefs will not be able to wait 100 generations for us t…

Have you stopped scuba diving? Aren't you concerned that your scuba diving contributes to the destruction?

This is a valid concern as Thailand barrier reefs made great recovering during the covid period (hinting that tourism could have had major effects)

Re: Scientists successfully breed corals to improve their heat tolerance

#67

Post by pjmorris »

candiddevmike wrote: post #61
MarkMarine wrote: post #9

I’ve been scuba diving for 20 years and I’ve seen the devastation first hand. Once healthy eco systems, teeming with life, just completely wiped out. It’s heartbreaking. Corals grow so slowly, this might improve things 100-200 years from now, which is not nothing, but no one should delude themselves into thinking this is a solution. The fish that depend on these reefs will not be able to wait 100 generations for us t…

Have you stopped scuba diving? Aren't you concerned that your scuba diving contributes to the destruction?

Not the GP, but I've moved from bi-weekly diving in South Florida and the Keys in the mid to late 90's, to once every couple of years for this reason, among others.

Even then, you could see the difference in the John Pennekamp State Park reefs from when I first snorkeled them in the 1970's.

Re: Scientists successfully breed corals to improve their heat tolerance

#68

Post by carapace »

daedrdev wrote: post #46
swayvil wrote: post #14

God forbid we stop consuming everything in sight like a fat kid in a candy shop.

I mean its easy to say this, but asking people to live worse lives is basically impossible.

This is a common misconception.

The choice isn't between a mildly worse life -or- a better life.

The choice is between a mildly worse life -or- a horrible life as the planetary life-support system reconfigures itself into a radical new climate regime.

And really, living in harmony with Nature is fun and fulfilling, so the choice is between a mildly inconvenient transitional period to a hip, swinging, easy living, eco-friendly life -or- a horrible life as the planetary life-support system reconfigures itself into a radical new climate regime.

Re: Scientists successfully breed corals to improve their heat tolerance

#69

Post by pjmorris »

consumer451 wrote: post #65
candiddevmike wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you stopped scuba diving? Aren't you concerned that your scuba diving contributes to the destruction?

I am aware of only three ways that diving could affect coral. 1) Boat's anchor doing physical damage, which is why popular dive spots have mooring buoys. 2) Many popular sun screen lotions are really bad for coral. 3) Physically touching the coral can do damage, even if gently. Are there any other factors of which I am unaware?

To my mind, I'd add the heat effects of the various forms of transportation involved, both in direct contribution and the CO2 increase as a result of their use.

Re: Scientists successfully breed corals to improve their heat tolerance

#70

Post by carapace »

swayvil wrote: post #39
javajosh wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One must deal with humans as they are, not as we'd wish them to be. The correct solution is that externalities associated with consumption should be priced in by fiat. The government has the (uneviable) task of protecting the environment because it is a perfect example of a common good. Of course, such authority must be given to the government by the people; it is already happening to a very small extent; as climate…

The technologies of education and advertising have proven to be quite good at changing people.

Yeah, this. Perfect example, our crazy car-based transportation network was popularized by a deliberate domestic propaganda campaign, we went from vilifying "speed demons" to vilifying "jaywalkers" because "they" told us to:

"The Real Reason Jaywalking Is A Crime" (Adam Ruins Everything) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxopfjXkArM

"Street Rivals: Jaywalking and the Invention of the Motor Age Street", Peter D. Norton https://www.jstor.org/stable/40061474

If we can convince people that it's their own fault for getting hit by cars, we can do anything.

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