It’s almost spring, so hurricane season is just around the corner, and it turns out what may be South Florida’s best defense against a storm is being created in a Tampa bay lab. 7’s Kevin Ozebek traveled there for tonight’s 7 Investigates.
They are the jewels of the ocean.
And once a year they put on a spectacular show as they create their next generation, but what you are witnessing isn’t happening deep below the surface.
Rachel Serafin, Senior Coral Biologist at the Florida Aquarium: “We have to re-create every aspect of the ocean.”
Instead, this is footage of rare, South Florida corals spawning in tanks.
Rachel Serafin: “I’ve never had a green thumb, but I’ve had a blue thumb!”
Because of the groundbreaking work being done here, corals in the Atlantic Ocean may be saved.
The world’s third largest barrier reef stretches all the way from Port Saint Lucie down to the Dry Tortugas.
But climate change and a mysterious coral disease have put the reef in peril.
Rachel Serafin: “We’ve lost significant coral coverage and population on our reefs, something like 90 plus percent since the ’80s.”
Now that Rachel can spawn corals in her lab, she’s breeding them by the thousands.
These rows of young corals will soon be transplanted here, inside Biscayne National Park to rebuild the reef.
Rachel Serafin: “We are going to need these corals. We’re going to need that reef tract to protect us from storm surges. We’re going with bigger and bigger weather events that we’re having and more frequent. We need these corals not only to withstand them but help us.”
This little coral destined for Biscayne Bay is only about half-an-inch wide now, but once it’s planted in the bay, if it thrives, in a few years it could be about the size of a baseball.
After that, it could keep growing bigger and bigger for potentially hundreds of years.
Liv Williamson, University of Miami Rosenstiel School PhD student: “If we had a healthy reef system there, that would break some of that storm surge and minimize the impact.”
Williamson is caring for corals, some of which were raised by Rachel.
When Liv isn’t working at UM’s aquaculture lab, she’s underwater planting corals off our coast.
Liv Williamson: “Without those corals, if it is just a flat bottom, there is nothing to stop those waves from moving right in and destroying our coastal properties and causing erosion.”
Coral is so crucial to breaking up waves, UM even uses this hurricane simulator to see how a reef minimizes a storm’s impact.
And later this year, Liv will be part of the UM team that will start building and planting a reef off the coast of Miami Beach.
Liv Williamson: “I think that we are going to be able to keep corals surviving in this area, but I think without this work, we may not have any.”
So, thanks to these two scientists, we’ll still have these amazing creatures that give South Florida both beauty and barriers.
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