Share the love: how one coral species survived

This was published 11 years ago

Share the love: how one coral species survived

AUSTRALIAN scientists have discovered some rare corals with promiscuous habits that could be helping them to breed their way out of extinction.

Faced with a shortage of mates of their own kind, these rare corals have cast a wider net and started cross-breeding with other coral species, producing hybrids.

"It pushes the boundaries of our traditional understanding of species," said a researcher, Zoe Richards. "They are being a little promiscuous."

Rare corals are thought to be at greater risk of extinction than more common varieties because of the low genetic diversity that comes from small populations.

This means a single disease outbreak could potentially wipe out a whole community.


But in studies of Acropora, or staghorn corals, Ms Richards and colleagues found a higher level of genetic diversity among some species than they expected.

In particular, analysis of the genetic make-up of three of the rare species of Acropora revealed these corals had one "mother" from their own species but multiple "fathers" from different species.

By cross-breeding with other species, rare corals can increase their ability to adapt to the pressures of climate change and other human threats.

"This is a mechanism enabling rare species to continue to reproduce and to continue to evolve as a species rather than die out," said Ms Richards, a marine scientist at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies.

"With such tricks up their sleeves, it is even possible that the rare corals of today could become the common corals of the future."

Acropora are the main reef builders of the Indian and Pacific oceans. Of the 100-odd species, about a third are thought to be rare, some with fewer than 10,000 individuals.


The paper, by a team of researchers from James Cook University, the Museum of Tropical Queensland and the Australian Institute of Marine Science, was published in the journal PloS One.

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