In hot water: Coral resilience in the face of climate change
Over a decade, researchers from Penn studied coral species in Hawaii to better understand their adaptability to the effects of climate change.
In the balmy waters of Kaneohe Bay in Oahu, Hawaii, beneath the surface where the sun’s rays dance through the undulating waves, a quiet but profound drama unfolds among the local coral reefs. It’s a story of resilience and fragility in the face of climate change, a tale Katie Barott, of the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Arts & Sciences, has been piecing together for nearly 10 years.
In 2015, as Barott recalls, “I was wrapping up my postdoctoral work and there was a major marine heatwave in Hawaii—it was actually the second heatwave event in two years—so, we went out and tagged a whole bunch of coral colonies.”
This marked the beginning of Barott’s study diving into the heart of how corals, those vibrant architects of the underwater world, fare in the face of climate change, the major driver of increasingly warmer waters throughout the Earth’s oceans.
Read more at Penn Today.