And I'm Madeline Walden and this is Aquarium of the Podcific, a podcast brought to you by Aquarium of the Podcific. Southern California's largest aquarium.
Join us as we learned alongside the experts in animal care, conservation and more.
Welcome back to Aquarium of the Podcific. I'm Erin Lundy, conservation coordinator for mammals and birds.
And I'm Madeline Walden, the Quarians digital content and community manager. I was so caught up in your introduction that I got nervous, you're focusing on this, what are we gonna talk about today? Today we're talking about a very interesting plant. Question mark. And the question marks question mark. That was enough. But morals, which are one of the probably sort of less highlighted animals at the aquarium because people don't often know that they are, in fact, animals, and they are living beings and they are structures that are very meticulously cared for by our Aquarius, which I'm very excited to learn about me to they're so beautiful if you visit the aquarium and you're able to see the exhibits with live coral, know that there's so much time and care that goes into them. And also some of them have been here since we opened in 1998. So a lot of our corals are charter animals, technically, that's crazy to think about. Some of the corals that we have here are also corals that have been confiscated for one reason or another. And so because they are animals, they then need a home and the aquarium is happy to provide a sort of refuge for those confiscated animals and allow them to really grow and develop here. I see our Aquarius sometimes diving for hours, just kind of like picking out little things of sand from our coral and really cleaning them up. And it seems like the most tedious and meticulous process but also so meditative to be like, under the sun. Yeah, it seems so yeah, I'm very jealous, I have no idea how to take care of coral. But thankfully, we're gonna be talking to Jay Harvey today who is a corals expert, and not only has taken care of coral here at the Aquarium, but has also taken care of coral. Internationally, we're gonna get into his work with the C Corp program and what that is exactly, so stay tuned for that. I'm excited about this one, it's gonna be really, really educational. Cool. Well, without further ado, let's get into it and learn a little bit about coral.
Hi Jay, thank you so much for being on the podcast today. We appreciate it. Hi, thank you for having me. I'm excited. So we are going to talk about corals, and specifically corals here at the Aquarium and then the C Corp project. So we'll ask what that is in a little bit. But tell us a little bit about you at the aquarium. What's your job here? What do you do? What do you take care of? Yeah, so I am an aquarist here at the Aquarium at the Pacific. So that means I take care of fish and invertebrates. And I work in our tropical Pacific gallery. So I work with mainly warm water things that live in and around coral reefs or in the tropics of the Pacific Ocean. So I work with kind of a large array of species, seahorses. A lot of big fish smell fish, cuddle fish, shrimp fish, lots of cool fish. Yeah, One Fish, Two Fish, many.
And then obviously, it worked a lot with corals. So if you have explored our tropical gallery, you may have noticed that pretty much all of our exhibits in my gallery have some form of coral in them. And so we kind of use that to kind of decorate our exhibits. It's kind of the focus of some exhibits. So it's a big part of our jobs making corals happy here.
Are they all live corals?
Good question. So there are some exhibits some of our bigger exhibits that have fake coral in them. So our big tropical reef exhibit has fake coral. And then there is one exhibit just through the tunnel. That is also fake coral.
What's the advantage of using some of those artificial corals over real ones? Or why might we do that?
Yeah. So corals themselves are very sensitive. They're very tricky to keep happy and alive. Yeah, identify with them.
So it can take a lot of work to keep them alive. And especially in a really big exhibit like tropical reef, it would take a lot, a lot of work. So it's just less work on our end to have fake corals in there. Yeah, if you visit the aquarium and you explore a tropical Pacific gallery, you'll notice that a lot of the corals we have in there are really big. And some of them I think are even chartered animals, right? Corals are animals. Yes, they are. A plant. Yeah. And that's it.
And they're also food for some of the fish, right? Yes. So we actually have a exhibit. That's the one I was mentioning through the tunnel. That's called our coral predators exhibit. So most of the animals in there are species that will actually eat coral. Yes, one of them being our favorite big parrot fish. His name is Michael Michael. A common misconception is fish Michael and human Michael human Michael Michael.
don't mean like twisted Exactly.
But yeah, so we have a pair of fish in their pair of fish like to eat coral. They have big, nice teeth that jump through the coral skeletons. And they actually eat the skeleton, their body can actually process it and break it down and so they poop out sand. So in that exhibit, we are constantly sucking out. fish poop.
Do you? Like extra sand in that exhibit like this? That's a weird.
Constantly, like
produce more thing? Oh, yeah, that's crazy.
If you work like if you're standing in front of the exhibit on the front left, that's where his poop sand accumulate.
He has a toilet area.
He's responsible.
I feel like I think we might have to do like an episode. That's Michael Michael.
Michael again. The distinction is very important.
All human Michael fish. Michael has a litter box corner. Yeah, it's all seen. That's amazing.
That's amazing. I think I think we will do a podcast episode all about coral predators, specifically because it's such a interesting to say fish, Michael about fish, Michael. I mean, they'll be in Yeah.
I heard a rumor when I was living in Hawaii that all of those beautiful white sandy beaches in Hawaii are a result of parrot fish poop. Yep. You're, if you're ever on a beautiful tropical vacation in Hawaii, just know that you are enjoying a lot of ferret fish poop over the years. But it is beautiful. And it makes for those beautiful white sandy beaches, because that is all those coral skeletons that
have been processed. Exactly. Yeah. And I don't remember the exact number. But there's a crazy stat about how much sand a single pair of fish produces a year. It's wild.
I think we should measure my good. That's a good study. We
should and then we can tell them the gift shop? Oh, absolutely. Michael's most of my heart. That's amazing. So
with all that being said, what is your favorite part of what you do? That
is a great question. Honestly, my favorite part of what I do is watching guests enjoy my exhibits. Because obviously so much time and effort goes into taking care of our exhibits on a daily basis, especially our coral exhibits. And so when I actually get to spend time in front of our exhibits and watch guests, specifically on children, you know, connect with coral connect with the animals that I care about, such as fish, Michael, get excited about the things that I myself I'm so excited about it's it makes all of that hard work very worth it. So
that's incredible. That's awesome. Okay, let's get into what is a coral? What is it? Yeah. What is it? Yeah,
so as you stated before, it is an animal. A lot of people don't know that or have heard that and can't really connect with that when they're looking at it in an exhibit. So that's one of the main things we try and hammer home in our signage and in our exhibits is that these are live animals that have needs just like you and I do. And so they are actually quite complex organisms, even though if you're just looking at them, they might just look like a pretty rock that's just sitting there. So they are animals. Some of their closest relatives are things like sea jellies and sea anemones. And so they're kind of related to those animals, they have a symbiotic that lives within their tissues called Zoho Zambelli really fun word to impress your friends with. So everybody said. And so that is what gives them their pretty colors. It's a unicellular organism that lives within their tissues that does photosynthesis. So animals don't do photosynthesis. They do cellular respiration like you and I do. But things like plants do photosynthesis, obviously, meaning they get their energy from the sun turn that energy into nutrients that they use to power their cells. So the coral Amazo is Anthalie live in harmony together and are able to survive in a part of the ocean that is relatively nutrient poor. So the Zambelli is what allows the coral to be happy in the ocean. So
if I was a coral, this is like if I had a little plant living in me that photosynthesize and made energy for me, right? That's cool. That's pretty cool. Yeah, so
you wouldn't really have to eat at all.
So, I have a question. Are corals like a colony of animals? Or are they one individual organism? Or is it sort of like how cells make up our body to make one animal? Like, what kind of is the deal? What
are we looking at?
What are we looking at. So
when you're looking at, you know, your classic coral, kind of a big, maybe a few feet across attached to a rock, that is actually a colony of individual polyps is what the individual unit is called a coral polyp. And the polyp is the like unit of the organism. And then each pilot is polyp is a clone of itself. So it's a colony of clones that all kind of live together. And in the DNA of each specific species of coral dictates how it is shaped, how it is formed, how it grows, things like that. So yeah, if you zoom in and look really close at the skin, or the skeleton of a coral, it looks like a bunch of tiny little sea anemones in a row. And so that's what the little polyps look like. They're like little sea anemones, with tentacles sticking out of the skeleton, they have a little mouth that they can, you know, eat occasionally some food filtering by. And so it's a bunch of small little animals living together.
What like jellies or Nid. Aryans, what are corals there? And you're also in a very Yeah, that's pretty cool. I did not know that. How do they build their skeletons?
have so many questions about corals? Yeah, so their skeletons are made of calcium carbonate. And so they basically are just constantly producing that when a new polyp is budding off to kind of continue growing a branch or spreading across a rock. They are just kind of building that skeleton as they go. And it kind of just becomes part of their organism. And that's the same as like snail shells, right? Yes, I think. Yeah, so we are spider crabs. We supplement their films with calcium so they can build their shells. Same thing with our corals. We supplement calcium so that they can build those shells as well. And so that's why they're very sensitive to ocean acidification buzz word. Because they the calcium skeletons are easily dissolved by acidity. So they're very sensitive.
I'm very sensitive to
um, is there coral in almost every ocean or every region of the world. What about deep sea? Coral? Coral? Yeah, yeah. Tell us a little bit about
Yeah, so not all corals are photosynthetic. There are some that don't do photosynthesis. They just are filter feeders like a sea anemone or a sea jelly would be. So yeah, we have corals here, right off our coast. There's some on the Channel Islands. We actually have one of our new exhibits in the Southern California gallery highlights some of those they're called hydro corals. And they look kind of like a sea fan. But they're kind of hard because they have that skeleton. So yeah, corals are very fascinating taxa because they are so diverse. Pretty much found worldwide. occupies so many different niches, niches. Wow, I haven't said that word out loud. A long time. Yeah, niche. The Golden niche.
Tell us do not tell no
one tell us how to pronounce Yeah, I want to go to my grave without I want to say it differently every time. That's French, my chi. My cheese. Um, so you talked a little bit about like feeding our corals and supplementing them with calcium. What are you feeding corals?
Yeah, so we are constantly feeding them plankton, we get frozen plankton, a lot of different kinds of copepods. You can actually you know, buy at your local fish store, they're pretty easy to mass produce and freeze and ship out. So we have a constant supply of those that we just kind of disperse into our coral exhibits. They get most of their energy from the photosynthesis that the Zoes Anthalie do but they are getting some nutrients from catching things in the water column that says little polyps just grab on to the Cobra rods and it's actually interesting because the more that you feed them on a regular basis the corals will learn that they should be reaching out those polyps. Maurice you can actually Nepali Yeah, you can train them to have longer polyps. Yeah, it's amazing. You can really tell that more like you feel he is right and right, exactly because of the tentacles reaching out so you can kind of see them actually reaching for it. Yeah. And so we try to feed our exhibits a lot because the corals look more striking. There make something beautiful. It makes me beautiful to those opposite for me. What would you say the poster child is for corals? Ooh, the poster child? That's a great question. The I have always thought of the like thin branching corals. The poster child, I was thinking, the genus is a cropper. Uh, oh, it's kind of Yes. Crows, if you're familiar with the hobby, emoji, yes. Yeah. Non animal.
Media weighing the coral.
Is there an emoji that looks like it? Otherwise? I don't
know, show me on the phone, which. So yeah, they, you know, are attached to the rock. And then they form these like nice thin branches, that all just kind of uniformly grow upwards, which I think are really cool. So a lot of times, if you have seen coral skeletons on someone's shelf at home or in a museum, that's kind of your typical colony,
why are corals important?
Yeah, so they are I like to compare coral reefs to like the Amazon rainforest. So coral reefs are basically a hotspot for biodiversity in the ocean. I think I read recently, the stat statistic is like coral reefs make up less than 1% of the ocean floor. But they are home to like 25% of all marine species, fish and invertebrates. So there are so many different species that call coral reefs home. And just like the Amazon rainforest, wouldn't exist without the trees being there creating that structure, coral reefs would not exist without the corals there, because they are the things that create the structure, the habitat, all the different space for animals to live nutrients for other animals to eat different things like that. So do
they make a waste product? How do they excrete waste? Like after they've eaten?
Yeah, so because of the way that the Zambelli is the synbiotic in their tissues? To do photosynthesis, just like a plant takes nutrients from soil Zambelli is taking nutrients from the coral animal to photosynthesis that's, like self fertilizing, it's a constant cycle of
do they sort of help with like eutrophication? Like do they pull nutrients out of the water, not
to the same extent that, like sponges, or clams, or mussels, or things like that would, but I'm sure there is some element to that
turns out, everything's important.
Everything is important.
That's pretty great, especially you, all of you listening are just as important as a sponge or a clam. But that's pretty, I mean, corals really create, like a home for all of the animals that so many of the animals that we have exist in coral reefs, which is why there's coral and all of our habitats. Yeah, they are pretty important. And that leads us to a very sad point that maybe corals aren't doing the best right now.
Yes, as we mentioned, corals are very sensitive, just by the nature of where they live, and the role that they play. They are used to very stable conditions, the tropics, you know, are always warm, you know, not a ton of extreme weather, pretty much stable conditions all year round with some minor fluctuations. And so, because of that, corals are used to kind of the same conditions the whole time throughout their lives. So if anything gets even just a little bit off balance, they do not like that. And so because of current trends with global warming, warming, ocean temperatures, lowering ph of the oceans, a lot of human impacts on reefs, across the worlds, they obviously are in decline because of how sensitive they are. And it's hard to because of how slowly they grow. It's it's hard for them to easily bounce back like some other species, or
can you explain a little bit about the connection between how global warming impacts ocean acidification for people who might not be familiar? Yeah, so
there is a general increase in the amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere because of you know, human production. And so the ocean as a whole is a big sink for carbon dioxide, meaning a lot of the carbon dioxide in the air gets dissolved into the ocean. And co2 naturally is an acidic molecule. So dissolving more co2 into a body of water will cause the pH to drop, meaning it gets a little more acidic. The pH of the ocean is usually around 8.3 Up to 8.5. And so it can drop below eight. And that obviously is not great for even just a small change like that can
tear. So I would love to chat about what the aquarium is doing on site to help corals and then off site dot corals. I know that we have a program right now where we're able to accept a compensated coral from local airports because we're here in LA. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah,
yeah. So we, because of where we're situated, we are very close to LAX, which obviously, is a major airport. It's one of the first stops from a lot of shipping flights coming from East Asia, the Indo Pacific, Australia. And so there, yes, a lot where a lot of beautiful corals are. And so, periodically, we will get a call from US Fish and Wildlife, saying, Hey, we confiscated X number of corals. Do you guys have space to take them? And typically, our answer is yes. And so they get these confiscations through different reasons. If someone doesn't have the right permits, if they're trying to smuggle corals in for some reason, different different situations like that. We don't really ask too many questions. We just say thank you. And usually they will drive it down here and drop it off for us, which is great. We actually got a confiscation of corals today. Wow, really? Yeah. Bags. Yeah. So just in little bags of water, it can really vary the condition that they come in. Sometimes they've been sitting in those bags for a long time. So the water is like very murky. Corals are super unhappy. But typically, they arrive in pretty good condition. And we can actually use them in our exhibits, which is great successful. Yeah.
Do you quarantine them the same way we do with other animals?
Yeah, so we all have any new coral that's coming in. Even if we're getting it from a different aquarium, where we know it has done well, we will keep it behind the scenes kind of ideally in its own separate area. But sometimes we don't quite have the space for that. But we'll keep a really close eye on it. We'll do a few different treatments, just to make sure that it has no external parasites or bacterial infections or anything like that. And we'll make sure that it is happy behind the scenes before we transfer it to an exhibit.
I guess part of the reason I asked is we talked a lot about introduce species and introduce diseases and so me being a frog person, like I always think about when you import frogs, chytrid is a huge risk for them. And there are other diseases. Are there any sort of like typical coral diseases that you are looking out for, like you test for this specific thing? Yeah,
so spotted the second you look at them, right? So we actually because I mean, it's something we're always looking for as coral Aquarius here because for our very established coral exhibits, it is very easy for parasites to get introduced into a big coral exhibit, it is very, very difficult to get to eradicate them. So we have to be extra extra careful because it becomes so much work for us if we get some sort of infestation. So some of the big things that we look for are there's small little invertebrates that can live on coral tissue and slowly eat away at it. There's two different things Yeah, extremely. The big one is nudibranchs they almost look like you can see them with the naked eye if they're big enough, but they are like fuzzy and white. They look like almost like little sheep.
Is it a specific new to bring to each coral? Yes. Yeah. Usually
affects zones right? Well, we the the one that we get a lot here is Montipora eating nudibranchs which is a specific species of stony coral. And so they will usually they will like hide underneath the coral. And then at night will like Come out and eat the coral and they will like lay their eggs underneath it's a whole thing. Then one of the other big ones that we get could not tell you off the top of my head exactly what kind of animal they are, but we just call them red bugs. They are tiny little red dots and they their main prey is acros Acropora, which is our coral yet and so we have had issues with those in the past. So those are the two big ones that we look for. And then also just bacterial infection is a big one that can spread easily. And so that's just looking at just the general tissue of the coral. If you know if some of it is like, slimy or sloughing off or turning white on one side, that's easier for us to spot. And those are called hitchhikers, right? Yes, yes. hitchhikers that we don't like, unfortunately for coming on corals, or is that something more so just live rock? Yeah, it's more so the live rock because ectasia for those of you that aren't familiar are small little anemones, that are basically like a weed in your garden, they will grow like crazy on any sort of rock inside of an aquarium. And they are very, very hard to get rid of. Because if you try to scrape them off or suck them up, they will just say, Oh my God, I need to spawn and they'll create like 100 more.
Oh, no, I need to Hunter more. I
need to repopulate the world.
Honestly, it's a really good evolutionary very nominal, learn that yeah, not ideal for 100 Scots. I'd still be so unproductive.
So funny. Why are people smuggling corals? Why are people obtaining them illegally and trying to bring them to the airport?
Yeah. So there is a very large industry of hobby aquarists people that have coral reef tanks at home, which is great. Obviously, that's exciting. We love people connecting with the ocean like that, but it has created a huge market for corals being sold. And so there are you know, legal markets to sell those corals but you know, you always have people trying to skirt skirt things.
Do you see a lot too, or potentially a lot of people just kind of wanting to souvenir from their trip and just thinking, Oh, this will look good on my shelf later.
Yeah, yeah. Typically, that's in the form of coral skeletons that people take. I would be shocked if someone you know, was trying to bring home a live a live coral, but I'm sure they're people that are adventurous enough to. Yeah, problems where people go to local fish stores, and they try to put corals in with their goldfish. Right, right. Yes, some horror stories. Yeah, yeah, some people will because goldfish or freshwater corals or saltwater? Don't do that. Yeah. Not recommended.
Well, then let's get into Seacor. Yeah, our external conservation effort. What is the core? Yeah, so
C Corp is a nonprofit organization that the aquarium supports, both financially and with manpower. So, it C Corp itself stands for Yes. J power. C corpse stands for sexual choral reproduction. So SC is sexual. not know that until someone's called that kind of blows people's minds. So se sexual co choral ar e reproduction. So they are focused on rebuilding coral reefs, and mainly focusing on how to best have corals reproduce sexually, which we can talk about in a sec. But they they are trying to develop specific techniques that are the most efficient way for nurseries in different island nations to create new corals that can then be out planted onto an affected reef. And so their main focus is coming up with the best techniques that can then be upscaled at a much bigger scale to have the biggest effect possible. So they're not necessarily focused on you know, trying to solve global warming or trying to solve coral reefs in crisis. They're focusing on how best to repopulate
is C Corp, an organization or a program. It's an
organization, it's, you know, its own company, they have staff, they have funding, all this different stuff. And
they primarily sort of do they work to bring experts together to sort of talk about here's the best way we can grow these corals like is your contribution to that partially manpower, but also your expertise from the aquarium?
Yeah, so we will provide input on you know, obviously, our expertise here at the Aquarium is keeping corals happy and a contained system. And so that's not something that you know, a lot of coral researchers have a ton of experience with. So we provide our input with that. But C Corp itself, their main focus is partnering with organizations around the world so they have partner organizations a lot in the Caribbean. I think Bonaire is one of their main sites. I was out in Sipan, and the Pacific so these different island nations that they go to, they kind of partner with a local organization or a local lab there and I help them develop their own practices, kind of using the C Corp method in order to make that a more successful project.
That's awesome. I don't think I really knew a lot about it. You know, I would always hear like, oh, this, of course, went to C Corp this year, and I didn't really understand what it was. So do you have experience here in breeding corals? Is that something that you also bring to the table? Is that something that? Do they breed them in a contained system? Like I have a lot of questions. Yeah.
Yeah. So I guess, taking a step back, the way that corals reproduce, there are kind of two main methods being asexual reproduction, and sexual reproduction. So one of the cool things about coral is that you can like break off a branch put it somewhere else, and that branch that has broken off will continue to grow. And the parent colony that you broke it off from will also continue to grow. So that is an easy way to take one coral and make a bunch of new corals is just a yes. fragging. fragging short for fragmentation. So we will actually do that fairly often here at the Aquarium. You know, if we have a coral that is doing so well in one exhibit that's kind of outgrowing its space, we want to populate other smaller exhibits, we can break off small pieces, move them to the other exhibits, they'll continue to grow in a plant. Exactly, yeah. But the downside of that in a restoration sense is that all of those fragments that you have created are still genetically exactly the same as the parent colony. So it is a good method if you were just trying to create more coral cover to create habitat for more animals, but from a ecosystem sense. It's not great, because you want Yes, diverse genetics. So theoretically, though, could it just grow indefinitely? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Corals are wild. They are one let me know is there like an oldest coral that we know? You know, I am sure there is some coral somewhere that is the oldest coral. But I that they can live like 1000s of years? Yeah, yeah, they have carbon dated a lot. But that's how they reproduce. Yes. So they can reproduce asexually. And then they also do sexual reproduction, which is where colonies will release gametes into the water, sperm and eggs get released into the water. And they will mix together and form new corals that will then settle and create genetically distinct corals.
Like one little guy will settle and he'll start, like cloning himself over and over again. Yeah, so cute to imagine just like the one polyp like here's good, you know, just starting to so cute. I love him. made like a whole city. Yeah, just by himself. Yeah, guy. He's a good guy. It's a really good guy. I love that. So they prioritize sexual reproduction for coral specifically, because it increases the diversity is any part of the project, increasing resilience to ocean acidification or temperature changes or anything like that. So
kind of indirectly, because they are collecting gametes from corals, typically on a reef that is already kind of at risk or declining. The corals that are still there are probably the ones that are the hardiest, because they have been able to survive whatever conditions have been coming in. And so by reproducing those corals, we know that they are more resilient to whatever changes might be happening at the current time at a given location.
Now, are we bringing back any of the fragment and corals or the or not the fragment but the corals you're producing? With C Corp in different countries? We back here
we have in the past, we have not in a few years? Because I mean, it's mainly just for educational purposes for us, you know, it's not easy for us to then ship it back to them after a certain point and they can help plant it. So it is something we have done in the past. But we have not done that
recently. What was your overall experience like going to Sai pan and participating in this project? How long were you there and sort of what was it like day to day?
Yeah, so I was there for two weeks. beginning of July. I flew out July 4.
America's birthday. Yeah.
It was interesting because I flew across the international dateline. So I like skipped a full day so I kind of missed most first of July 4, yeah, don't don't tell.
But yeah, so sigh pan itself, if people aren't familiar is actually American soil. It's a small little island right next to Guam, it's part of the Northern Marianas Islands. So it's very close to the Marianas Trench. It's like a three hour flight from Eastern Asia. So it's culturally a very interesting place because it is American soil. So signs are in English. You know, most people speak English there, there is an American presence. But historically, you know, obviously, there was a native population that has lived there it at one point was Japanese territory, it was German, at one point, it was Spanish way back when. And so it's kind of this interesting hodgepodge of cultures that make it kind of a very distinct place. It's very interesting. And then good food, so much good food. Because of that, you know, all these different cultures have contributed. But it was also a very important site and World War, believe it was World War Two. And so because of that, there's a lot of memorials and war relics, there's like tanks that are just out in the lagoon that have rusted because no one has cleaned that up. And it's, it's got a fascinating history. But it's a very cool little place. It's a small island. It's, like 12 miles long and five miles wide. So not, not super big. But we were partnering with C Corp is partnering with a local organization. They're called jams, Johnston, applied marine science teams. And it's led by a scientist Liza Johnston, who is from the US, she's from Florida. And she has since moved out to Taipan and started this organization to focus on coral reef restoration, which is super cool. And so C Corp, got a grant with her to partner and kind of develop her techniques out there. And so we were working with her. And so my role, there was basically just manpower, I was a dive buddy, whenever they needed to go to do something, if that was looking at the coral nursery scrubbing tiles, making sure things were hunky dory out there. And then also helping with the spawning dives, where we go out at night, after the full moon and collect the gametes,
from nectar to the full moon.
This bond with the moon Yes,
so I rose i because
so the way that corals will spawn is the different species will all spawn at the same time. So like all individuals, in theory of one species will spawn at once, okay, and then a little bit later, a different species will go off. And so these researchers that live there year round, know, the reefs know, the corals, they knew pretty much exactly how many days after the full moon, they were going to spawn, and like how many minutes after sunset based on cell specific? Yeah. And so she had a schedule, and she's like, Okay, we need to be out there by 715. Because by 730, they're gonna be going off, and then at 745, the other species is gonna go off. Yeah. And so it's so you have
to see what plans these trips around exactly the cycle,
which is why happened to be on July 4, because the full moon I think, was on July 5, that's when the moon is flashing is that I think
it's really cool to you know, when you think about these projects, how important local ecological knowledge is, and sometimes even like, traditional ecological knowledge is so important to just understand what's happening in the environment. And you can't know those specific things unless you've been there observing, right? Exactly. And it's crazy to me that someone's like, Hey, it's 747 there's gonna be a huge sponsor literally.
Cool. And it was interesting, too, because there were local dive groups not associated with us at all that were also coming out at certain times at night because they just wanted to watch the coral spawn just from like a tourism spectating perspective. So there's a very big like, local cultural connection to the reefs, which is, yeah, what does it look like? Yeah, so I they have shown it a bunch on planet earth a few times, but it turns out I get to watch. Very good dramatic music. Yeah, I'm sure it makes your heart like sweet Yeah. Like, wow, it was very cool actually seeing it in person. But it's, if you can imagine all of the little polyps on a coral head, each one of those polyps is going to produce a gamete bundle. So they will kind of package sperm and eggs in one little bundle, and then it will just kind of pop out of the polyp. But all of the polyps will release it at the exact same time. And so it's kind of depends on the species, but it's kind of like the size of like a head of a pencil or a head. So it is visible. Yeah, there are small little specks, but you know what is happening and they float. So they all just kind of get released at the same time.
Do they like meet at the surface and then sink and settle. So they
float up to the surface. And then the waves action is what causes them to kind of break apart the bundles, and then everything kind of mixes together from different colonies. And then the I mean, that's fertilization happening. So as soon as that happens, they start growing. And then after, you know, 24 or 48 hours, they'll start to sink down and find a good spot to settle. All those little
guys. Hope that's so cool.
What about here at the Aquarium have you do our coral spawn?
So we have corals that will spawn here? It is not purposeful on our part, you know, we're not trying to make them spawn moon here. It's I mean, we have different light cycles. So I think some of them are keyed in on that. I think sometimes they it's just been a while and so they just kind of need to release it. I know. Yeah, we will come in and they will be you know, exit the surface, or sometimes we will even see some like, right, as the lights are turning on first thing in the morning, we can still see coral spawning. But we have never tried to, at least in recent years since I've been here, we have never tried to like get those gametes and try and settle just because it's such a work intensive process. Yeah.
Well, thank you for sharing so much. What C Corp was like, that's cool. I didn't know very much about what the project was. And it's really cool to see the aquarium having an impact sort of globally. Also, you know, knowing that you went out to Saipan and you help sort of spawn these corals and like work on restoration work is so pretty awesome. Our last couple questions are our social media questions that we did touch on why corals are important. But one of the people actually asked How successful has coral restoration been so far?
That's a great question that I don't have, you know, obvious hardcore statistics on. But I think there are more and more organizations popping up working on coral restoration. And a lot of it is usually pretty site specific. A lot of local governments are creating organizations that will focus on restoration in a specific area or creating funding for organizations to be successful. And so it it definitely has helped, you know, it's obviously not hurting, and especially just from like a cultural impact in those specific communities on small islands. creating that connection with the local community and the coral reefs is super important. So even just that is a big one educating Right, exactly,
and what the problems are. I think that helps, too. Speaking of another social media question is how can I help with coral restoration? I mean,
yeah.
But how can this person help and what can they do besides just kind of learning about it, spreading the word and donating to the cause? Like, is there anything sort of focused that an individual can do to help? Yeah,
I unfortunately, it's kind of the same answer that I'm sure they've heard before, you know, because global warming is the main factor for coral reef. degradation, you know, reducing your carbon footprint carpooling to work riding your bicycle.
I have one Yeah, coral safe sunscreen. That's a yes,
