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Vulnerable Corals

Researchers in Anne Cohen‘s lab are investigating how changes in the ocean, caused by climate change, may threaten coral reefs. They have explored reefs in Palau, the Phoenix Islands, Dongsha Atoll in the South China Sea, and the Caribbean. Warming ocean temperatures cause coral bleaching, and rising carbon dioxide from fossil-fuel burning is lowering pH levels of seawater. In the experiment above, MIT-WHOI Joint Program graduate student Hannah Barkley put samples of living corals in containers with seawater infused with different levels of carbon dioxide to see how each level affects coral growth. Green containers have current levels. Yellow have projected levels in 2100. Red have even higher levels. (Photo by Hannah Barkley, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)