Coral reefs and ocean habitats are experiencing
a number of challenges right now.
We've had a lot of coral losses, unfortunately,
and experts fear it's about to get worse.
Ocean temperatures have surged past old record highs,
the coral teetering on their tipping point.
But there have been certain individuals
who have survived these heating events and these disease events.
And we want to take those corals and preserve them for future research
and also to outplant them again
on the reef when it is safe to do so.
And there's a chance that a few or even hundreds of them
will be the next generation of our reef.
We also have other researchers here who are dealing with crab research
in order to focus on the herbivory
on the reef,
because algae growth is out of control.
The algae has taken over that open real estate
that was left open by the loss of coral.
These grazers or crabs
and urchins and snails play maintenance.
They are the cleanup crew.
So what we're about to do is feed them.
This is one of the many algaes that we hope for them to clean off of the reefs.
And we're essentially going to show you
how good of grazers they are.
The crabs, they will come in and they'll eat all of that algae.
And so they are perfect for what we're trying to do to offset
the damage done of too much algae taking up space.
This is one of our females.
They are growing crabs and helping crabs reproduce
so that we are doing a team effort to help better restore corals.
When we go to the reefs and we put the coral out
and we put the crab out , they can go out there and try to rebuild
in this newer way.
Working with organizations like NOAA is essential
to further innovations for coral research.
Every one of us has different ideas that we bring to the table
and different specialties.
Mote does a fantastic job
of employing a vast array of scientists.
What we are doing now can give the reef the building blocks
to help itself in the future.
We are just trying to give it that head start to allow the corals
to come back on their own and reproduce naturally in the wild.