The Red Sea project faces challenges that stretch beyond the borders of science and into diplomacy. Fine, Meibom and their team are planning an ambitious expedition to sail on a research boat called Fleur de Passion from the north to the south of the Red Sea. The expedition may inevitably be delayed by the coronavirus pandemic for now.
But it’s a mission that, if it comes off, could offer insight into the reasons behind the corals’ resilience and a glimpse into their future. “When you move south in the Red Sea, you’re essentially sailing into the future in terms of coral resilience to climate change,” Meibom says, “everything gets warmer and warmer.”
Meibom believes that intelligent sampling and genetic analysis of key coral species in the Red Sea, alongside understanding the environmental conditions they live under, could lead to a new way of thinking about how reefs work – including how they are connected. One key question is how corals act as “source” and “sink” regions in terms of creating and receiving coral offspring.
Identifying source regions can help guide reef management or remediation efforts in the region. And, as Grottoli says about her own coral reef and climate research, it’s important to try to understand the underlying traits that drive resilience in corals to make better-informed decisions on management, conservation and restoration.
The expedition would require funding, in addition to research permits from the majority of countries that border the Red Sea: Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen. The region doesn’t exactly have a strong record of collaboration, and some of the Red Sea countries do not have diplomatic relations with one another. What they do have is a common interest in corals, whether or not they all realise it yet; if the reef is harmed, so too are the ecosystems and economies that depend on it.
“Looking into the future, this is really the livelihood of people of the Red Sea. I consider myself as one,” says Fine, a native of Israel. “Here there’s an amazing opportunity to prepare reefs for climate change, to allow them to persist and flourish. This is something that doesn’t exist in other regions.”
"middle" - Google News
April 09, 2020 at 07:17AM
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The Middle Eastern corals that could survive climate change - BBC News
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