A simple touch can bring dying corals back to life in just 7 weeks
Stanford researchers discovered that bleached corals can recover significantly faster when placed in contact with healthy, genetically identical coral fragments. This laboratory observation offers a potential new method for reef restoration.
Why it matters
As climate change accelerates coral bleaching, this finding provides a scalable biological strategy to help preserve endangered reef ecosystems.
For the first time, researchers have demonstrated that severely bleached corals can fully recover after spending just a few days in contact with healthy, genetically identical corals.
In laboratory experiments, corals that had turned white and were close to dying regained their health within seven weeks. According to a study published on October 14 in Science Advances , this represents the fastest documented recovery from coral bleaching. The discovery could lead to new techniques for restoring coral reefs, which some estimates suggest could disappear within decades as climate change fuels increasingly severe and frequent marine heat waves.
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