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In the era of climate change, Southern Cross University marine scientists, ecologists and oceanographers are turning inspired thinking into brilliant innovation, leading efforts to preserve and restore precious marine environments.
Inspired science brings hope for marine and reef systems
Southern Cross University PhD candidate Meryl Larkin may be early in her research career, but she is already creating knowledge that might claw a precious and threatened coral back from the path to extinction.
Scientists led by Meryl have for the first time mapped the reproductive strategies and life cycle of the endangered purple cauliflower coral, Dendronephthya australis.
Endemic to south-eastern Australia – with the largest populations historically found in the Port Stephens estuary in New South Wales – the purple cauliflower is one of 100 priority species listed on the Federal Government’s Threatened Species Strategy.
The species has been all but wiped out in the estuary during the past three years due to the devastating impact of sediment shifts, flooding and other factors. Ramifications extend to its role as vital habitat for other species, including the endangered White’s seahorse and baby snapper.
It is therefore remarkable that such a dire situation should now inspire optimism, thanks to scientific breakthroughs including new IVF methods devised by Meryl – with advice and support from coral biologists at the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) – to produce larvae in the lab and successfully reintroduce coral babies into the wild.
Meryl’s work has been co-funded and supervised by the University and New South Wales Department of Primary Industries, with ongoing work funded by the NSW Environmental Trust.
“Our discoveries open new doors for conservation strategies, including potential restoration efforts,” she says. “It has given us real hope we can keep this coral off the extinction list.”
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Southern Cross University’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Academic Capability), Professor Mary Spongberg, says Meryl’s work is a clear example of the University’s intent to harness its distinct research strengths to create a better world.
“The other aspects of Meryl’s research – about which we are really proud – are that we are solving these problems in deep partnership with others, while also providing strong, supportive pathways for early career researchers,” says Professor Spongberg.
The breakthrough research Meryl is doing today joins a Southern Cross University tradition going back decades in seeking to understand and meet the challenges facing the world’s oceans and reefs. It also connects seamlessly with the work of globally recognised Distinguished Professor Peter Harrison who pioneered the Coral IVF breeding process and whose commitment to marine research is now in its fifth decade.
Much hope is being placed on Coral IVF and other processes to achieve large-scale reef recovery around the world, although nowhere is the need more pressing than on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.
Home to 3,000 individual reef systems and an incredible array of marine life, four mass coral bleaching events in the past seven years have provided stark evidence of the Reef’s vulnerability. Despite UNESCO’s decision in August 2023 to keep the Reef off its World Heritage in Danger list, it remains under serious threat.
“Meryl’s work is a clear example of the University’s intent to harness its distinct research strengths to create a better world.”
Restoration, protection and sustainability are at the heart of marine science at Southern Cross University, as evidenced by the launch of the Reefs and Oceans Research Impact Cluster to consolidate and accelerate solutions for underwater ecosystems worldwide. The science happening within the Cluster is imaginative and inventive.
For instance, at the University’s National Marine Science Centre (NMSC) in Coffs Harbour, Dr Daniel Harrison is experimenting with ‘cloud brightening’ technology to help clouds reflect solar energy away from the reef.
When scaled up, this technique may be able to cool ocean temperatures and reduce bleaching. The project is part of the Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program, a partnership with the Australian Government’s Reef Trust and the Great Barrier Reef Foundation.
“Marine cloud brightening sees microscopic sea water droplets sprayed into the air, creating a plume of salt crystals which interacts with cloud to reflect solar energy away from the reef waters when heat stress is at its maximum,” says Dr Harrison.
Following more than 30 years of theoretical work, Southern Cross University is the first in the world to take brightening technology outdoors. This has been with the support of local Indigenous communities and with permits granted by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.
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“Fogging” is another technique under trial, which mimics the effects of fog by adding seawater to the air from a generator on moored platforms or vessels. It has the potential to protect reefs from solar radiation for short periods, potentially reducing coral bleaching in a cost-effective way while buying precious time for longer-term climate change mitigation.
Mitigation and adaptation go hand in hand for the NMSC’s Dr Emily Howells, who is investigating the capacity of reef-building corals to adapt to climate change. In focus are corals with a genetic predisposition for thermal tolerance and, by extension, how this innate adaptivity might be harnessed for broader coral health and sustainability.
Dr Howells is collaborating with AIMS in Townsville and King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudia Arabia.lves taking samples from hundreds of corals that are tagged with their own GPS identifier. Variation in heat tolerance – and how much can be explained genetically – is measured and ranked across the Great Barrier Reef.
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Throughout the Reefs and Oceans Research Impact Cluster, no idea is off the table, even if some might seem counter-intuitive at first glance – such as adding industrial matter to the oceans to mitigate climate change. All becomes clear as Associate Professor Kai Schulz explains the process of Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement (OAE) for carbon dioxide removal and storage.
“OAE involves the controlled addition of crushed minerals or suitable alkaline agents from industrial processes into the ocean to mitigate climate change,” he says. “Next to rock minerals, industrial inorganic by-products have the capacity to be an effective, ocean-based conduit for carbon capture and storage.
“The ocean already absorbs more atmospheric carbon dioxide than anything else and perhaps, through strategies like OAE, it might be helped to do even more, although we must not proceed without full knowledge of what it means for the oceans themselves and their delicate and complex ecosystems.”
Associate Professor Schulz’s research is part of a five-year, $11 million partnership between Southern Cross University, University of Tasmania, University of Hamburg, the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research (Kiel), and Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Funding has come from the Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement R&D Program, a multi-funder effort incubated by the Carbon to Sea Initiative
Driving these and other projects is a cohort of Southern Cross University scientists with a profound understanding of, and concern for, the planet’s reefs and oceans. Their efforts are fostering environmental transformation via protection, restoration and sustainability, while also supporting the hundreds of millions of people whose lives and livelihoods depend on these systems.