On Coconut Island, not far from the cars that speed past busy storefronts on Kamehameha Highway, Ruth Gates is in her own race against time.
The University of Hawaii researcher — like many scientists in town last week for the biennial Ocean Sciences Meeting — sees the oceans growing too acidic, too quickly for many marine species to handle the change. Without drastic steps to curb man-made carbon emissions, they say, many coral reefs that support fisheries, protect coast lines from storm surge and attract tourists will dwindle and disappear in the coming decades.
"We can confirm that reefs are declining. There’s no disputing that," Gates said on a recent morning, a cool breeze blowing off a cloudy Kaneohe Bay behind her. "But it’s not all doom and gloom."
Using the popular Oahu bay’s turquoise waters as a laboratory, Gates has spent the past several years scrambling to find the hardiest, strongest coral — the "professional athletes" of the bunch — that can endure the warmer and more acidic seas of the future.
The idea is to then take those corals’ traits and breed them on a large scale — similar to breeding preferred traits in dogs and other animals.
In Hawaii, a state that has become a flash point in the debate over the use of genetically modified organisms, the Hawai‘i Institute of Marine Biology researcher is quick to stress that her concept of selective coral breeding is something entirely different.
"We’re looking for the supercorals that already exist" several feet from a stretch of coral just offshore, Gates explained. The approach would not introduce foreign DNA into coral, as is done in the controversial GMO process.
Gates and her colleague Madeleine van Oppen, a senior principal research scientist at the Australian Institute of Marine Science, instead look to use what they call "cross-transplantation" of corals to speed up the organisms’ evolution and help keep pace with ocean acidity.
The research duo’s out-of-the-box thinking was selected in October from some 54 entries for Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s first "Ocean Challenge: Mitigating Acidification Impacts" contest, with a $10,000 prize.
In December they submitted a multimillion-dollar proposal to the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation to fund their idea beyond the handful of flow tanks and aquariums they’ve used to study mostly fist-size samples of coral on Coconut Island.
In those tanks, Gates and her researchers create models of the future ocean — adjusting temperature and acid levels. Instruments show whether the corals inside are withstanding the conditions or leaning toward bleaching.
They hope eventually to take their breeding concept into the open ocean to see whether it can restore coral reefs already damaged or destroyed.
The researchers expect to hear back from the Allen foundation in the coming weeks.
Rob Dunbar, a Stanford University oceanographer who’s studied coral and climate change issues for 35 years, called Gates and van Oppen’s concept "fantastic."
"I’ve seen environments where just from natural conditions there’s corals that live in superhot" and acidic waters, Dunbar said. "I think understanding the genetics behind that — what are the genes that turn on, turn off to help the coral deal with these physiological challenges — that’s got to be part of the story."
Much more study and measurement of ocean acidification needs to be done, but the experiments completed so far suggest a 50 to 60 percent decline in the world’s coral growth rate in the next 60 years or so, Dunbar said. The decline in growth will result in a net loss in coral volume — not just for living coral, but also its dead material that helps create beaches and important marine minerals, he said.
Kaneohe Bay is known for its flood runoff after heavy rain, shifts in temperature and swings in acidity levels, due in part to coastal development. Consequently, it serves as an ideal site to study the growing stress on corals, Gates said.
Her team at the Institute of Marine Biology at Coconut Island seeks to isolate the strongest corals it can find representing basic shape classes, including massive (rock), branching and encrusting corals. Researcher van Oppen conducts similar work in Australia.
Dunbar spent part of his visit on Oahu last week meeting with policymakers, scientists and lawyers from around the Pacific to talk about better protection of the region’s coral reefs.
"For them the thought that two generations from now that their reef systems will be devastated — it’s just inconceivable. It’s unimaginable. It’s so highly objectable. They want to start doing things now" to combat the effects of ocean acidification, he said.
"It will adversely affect island nations, coastal economies in an aesthetic way, in an economic way. It impacts aquaculture. … It will probably affect fish stocks down the road."
Surfacing alongside Gates’ rush to find and develop resistant coral colonies are at least a few perplexing questions.
One contemplates that even if supercorals thrive, how much of the world’s coral diversity will be lost if acidity continues to intensify and spread?
Another, Gates said, anticipates a switch from wondering how to save all species of coral to researchers asking, "How much can we afford to lose?"
