“As coral reefs face threats University at Buffalo scientists study the future of soft corals”

9.13.22 [Just today in social media.]
Charlotte Hsu

Mary Alice Coffroth and Howard Lasker are among researchers whose work is shedding light on how climate change may shape reefs.

This summer, coral researchers from around the world gathered to share their latest findings at a conference devoted to reef science, conservation and management.

One question that looms large in the field: As warming waters, ocean acidification and other pressures threaten corals, what will reefs look like in years to come?

“Much of the conference was focused on the future of coral reefs,” said University at Buffalo scientist Howard Lasker, PhD, who attended the 15th International Coral Reef Symposium in July in Bremen, Germany with fellow UB coral scientist Mary Alice Coffroth, PhD. Both are research professors of geology in the UB College of Arts and Sciences.

“While it has been a consistent theme that we must reduce CO2 emissions, the focus of many of the papers has been the science behind approaches to facilitate the survival and recovery of reef corals,” Lasker added.

As part of the symposium, Lasker was honored at a reception for newly named Fellows of the International Coral Reef Society (ICRS), which sponsors the conference. According to the organization, “The status of ICRS Fellow is awarded in recognition of scientific, conservation, or management achievement and service to ICRS over a significant period of time.”

Prior to the conference, Coffroth participated in the fourth of a series of workshops hosted by the National Science Foundation-funded Coral Bleaching Research Coordination Network. The event was geared toward writing a perspective on the future of coral bleaching research. She also attended the first workshop in 2019 to help develop recommendations for coral bleaching experimental design protocols.

Lasker and Coffroth have both been studying coral reefs for several decades. Their work has spanned a period where large-scale bleaching events and other dangers linked to climate change have placed many reefs in peril.

The pair recently took time to share some of their latest research, focused on “soft corals” in the Caribbean, with implications for understanding the future of reefs:
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Q: How has the world’s understanding of the threats facing reefs changed since you began studying corals?

Lasker: “When I started studying reefs in the 1970s, we were all focused on complex and fascinating questions about how reefs work. The role of corals, fishes, hurricanes, sea urchins and other organisms were all being studied in systems that seemed to have been around ‘forever’ and which we expected would continue ‘forever.’

“While some researchers were already raising the alarm about the effects humans were having, many, including me, thought of those as concerns for specific places with especially large human populations or especially uncaring approaches to using reefs.

“We have steadily seen the effects of humans spread through all of the world’s oceans, and the effects of ocean warming pays no attention to local policies. Now it is the rare scientist who does not have to include our altered environments in their research.”

Q: What are soft corals, and why are they important?

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Lasker: “When people hear the word coral, they usually think of stony corals. Those are corals that produce hard skeletons. Stony corals — called “scleractinian corals” in the vernacular of researchers — create the framework of the reef.

“Soft corals, also known as “octocorals”, are the sea fans and sea plumes one sees waving to and fro in videos of reefs. Their name “octocorals” comes from each polyp having eight tentacles. Like their scleractinian cousins, they create three dimensional structure on the reef, which is used by fishes and other small organisms. Unlike their scleractinian cousins, they do not have a solid skeleton, and when they die they break down into sand.

“Octocorals have always been present on reefs, but as hard corals have steadily declined in abundance, the octocorals have increasing importance on reefs. And in some places, octocorals, unlike the hard corals, have actually increased in abundance.”

Q: Dr. Lasker, some of your recent work has documented the rise of soft coral ‘forests’ in Caribbean reefs. Can you talk about these findings?

An octocoral forest on the south shore of St. John, Virgin Islands. Some stony corals are visible in the foreground, but on this reef and many Caribbean reefs, they no longer dominate the reefscape, says UB coral researcher Howard Lasker. Credit: Howard Lasker.

Lasker: “Stony corals, also called hard corals, have been in decline for at least the last 50 years, and sadly, many reefs are only a pale shadow of the reefs of 50 years ago.

“Octocorals have been more resilient to stresses that have killed stony corals, and some reefs have transitioned from a mix of hard corals and octocorals to predominantly octocorals. The soft corals’ upright, tree-like structure creates a ‘forest’ that provides many, but not all, of the ecosystem services that hard corals provide.

“We have been studying this transition with the goal of understanding why octocorals have been resilient and the important question of whether we can expect that to continue.”

Q: Dr. Lasker, you co-led a team that was monitoring reefs in the U.S. Virgin Islands when two major hurricanes hit in 2017. What did you observe in the years after?

Lasker: “The first thing to understand is that coral reefs have always been affected by hurricanes, just as fire has been an important component of the dynamics of forests. Historically, hurricanes have caused damage which over the course of years and decades reefs recover from. The difference now is that stony corals have been reduced to such low numbers that they do not recover.

“What we discovered in the Virgin Islands is that while octocorals were adversely affected at our study sites, the damage was not as great as we feared and, more importantly, the following year, we saw the development of new colonies which with time should lead to the recovery of the octocorals.”

Q: Dr. Coffroth, you recently studied soft corals and their algal symbionts during a bleaching event. What were some of the most useful findings?

Coffroth: “Reef corals and octocorals form a symbiosis with single-celled algae that live in the coral tissue. These algal symbionts, in the family Symbiodiniaceae, use energy from the sun to produce nutrients that are passed to the coral, and the coral in return provides the algal symbionts with nitrogen, CO2 and a safe place to live. This symbiosis is a true mutualism where both partners benefit.

“Much of the normal coloration of corals and octocorals is due to the brownish algal symbionts that they harbor. Under periods of stress, such as elevated temperatures, the stony corals and octocorals may lose the algal symbionts on which they depend. Then the coral appears white, and this is called “coral bleaching”.

Flasks containing algal symbionts isolated from stony corals and octocorals. These intracellular symbionts provide the corals with nutrients from photosynthesis. Scientists culture these algal symbionts to study a variety of topics, including the symbionts’ thermal tolerance and their ability to adapt to the changing climate. Credit: Douglas Levere / University at Buffalo.

“We have found that, in many cases, octocorals do not bleach as readily as stony corals, and if they do bleach, they generally recover. Given that there are many species of symbiodinian algal symbionts which have different physiologies, we sought to determine if the symbionts harbored by Caribbean octocorals were more thermotolerant.

“Our laboratory studies demonstrated that the symbiont types that are found in Caribbean octocorals can grow at temperatures where many stony corals exhibit bleaching. This suggests that at least some of the resilience seen in octocorals may be due to this symbiosis.”

Q: What role will soft corals play in the future of coral reefs?

Lasker: “This is the big, and unknown, question. If conditions continue as they are, octocoral forests may persist. They will not build the reef the way stony corals have, and in the long run that will lead to changes on the reef.

“Reef scientists refer to ‘flattening of the reef,’ which occurs as the dead skeletons of stony corals erode. However, in the short term, octocoral forests will provide habitat for fishes and other organisms, and if conditions improve, their effects might even facilitate recovery of stony corals.

“However, that requires a big improvement in environmental conditions. If environmental conditions continue to deteriorate due to warming sea temperatures, overfishing, onshore land use policies and other anthropogenic effects, then octocorals too will suffer.”

Q: Is there anything else you would like to add?

Lasker: “If humans do not reverse CO2 emissions and eliminate other stressors to reefs, then the fate of reefs is rather bleak. Some researchers are working on finding and propagating more resistant corals, but that too requires us to stop the decline in environmental conditions.

“We cannot simply turn back the clock and recreate the reefs of 50 years ago, but we may be able to set the stage for recovery if we can reverse CO2 emissions, eliminate overfishing and adopt land use policies that will not further degrade reefs.”

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The University at Buffalo-SUNY is a public research university with campuses in Buffalo and Amherst, New York. The university was founded in 1846 as a private medical college and merged with the State University of New York system in 1962. It is one of four university centers in the system, in addition to The University at Albany-SUNY, The University at Binghampton-SUNY , and The University at Stony Brook-SUNY. As of fall 2020, the university enrolls 32,347 students in 13 colleges, making it the largest public university in the state of New York.

Since its founding by a group which included future United States President Millard Fillmore, the university has evolved from a small medical school to a large research university. Today, in addition to the College of Arts and Sciences, the university houses the largest state-operated medical school, dental school, education school, business school, engineering school, and pharmacy school, and is also home to SUNY’s only law school. The University at Binghampton has the largest enrollment, largest endowment, and most research funding among the universities in the SUNY system. The university offers bachelor’s degrees in over 100 areas of study, as well as 205 master’s degrees, 84 doctoral degrees, and 10 professional degrees. The University at Buffalo and The University of Virginia are the only colleges founded by United States Presidents.

The University at Buffalo is classified as an R1 University, meaning that it engages in a very high level of research activity. In 1989, UB was elected to The Association of American Universities, a selective group of major research universities in North America. University at Buffalo’s alumni and faculty have included five Nobel laureates, five Pulitzer Prize winners, one head of government, two astronauts, three billionaires, one Academy Award winner, one Emmy Award winner, and Fulbright Scholars.

The University at Buffalo intercollegiate athletic teams are the Bulls. They compete in Division I of the NCAA, and are members of the Mid-American Conference.

The University at Buffalo is organized into 13 academic schools and colleges.

The School of Architecture and Planning is the only combined architecture and urban planning school in the State University of New York system, offers the only accredited professional master’s degree in architecture, and is one of two SUNY schools that offer an accredited professional master’s degree in urban planning. In addition, the Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning also awards the original undergraduate four year pre-professional degrees in architecture and environmental design in the SUNY system. Other degree programs offered by the Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning include a research-oriented Master of Science in architecture with specializations in historic preservation/urban design, inclusive design, and computing and media technologies; a PhD in urban and regional planning; and, an advanced graduate certificate in historic preservation.

The College of Arts and Sciences was founded in 1915 and is the largest and most comprehensive academic unit at University at Buffalo with 29 degree-granting departments, 16 academic programs, and 23 centers and institutes across the humanities, arts, and sciences.

The School of Dental Medicine was founded in 1892 and offers accredited programs in DDS, oral surgery, and other oral sciences.

The Graduate School of Education was founded in 1931 and is one of the largest graduate schools at University at Buffalo. The school has four academic departments: counseling and educational psychology, educational leadership and policy, learning and instruction, and library and information science.

The School of Engineering and Applied Sciences was founded in 1946 and offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in six departments. It is the largest public school of engineering in the state of New York. University at Buffalo is the only public school in New York State to offer a degree in Aerospace Engineering.

The School of Law was founded in 1887 and is the only law school in the SUNY system.

The School of Management was founded in 1923 and offers AACSB-accredited undergraduate, MBA, and doctoral degrees.

The School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences is the founding faculty of the University at Buffalo and began in 1846. It offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in the biomedical and biotechnical sciences as well as an MD program and residencies.

The School of Nursing was founded in 1936 and offers bachelors, masters, and doctoral degrees in nursing practice and patient care.

The School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences was founded in 1886, making it the second-oldest faculty at University at Buffalo and one of only two pharmacy schools in the SUNY system.

The School of Public Health and Health Professions was founded in 2003 from the merger of the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine and the University at Buffalo School of Health Related Professions. The school offers a bachelor’s degree in exercise science as well as professional, master’s and PhD degrees.

The School of Social Work offers graduate MSW and doctoral degrees in social work.

The Roswell Park Graduate Division is an affiliated academic unit within the Graduate School of UB, in partnership with Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, an independent NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center. The Roswell Park Graduate Division offers five PhD programs and two MS programs in basic and translational biomedical research related to cancer. Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center was founded in 1898 by Dr. Roswell Park and was the world’s first cancer research institute.

The University at Buffalo houses two New York State Centers of Excellence (out of the total 11): Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences (CBLS) and Center of Excellence in Materials Informatics (CMI). Emphasis has been placed on developing a community of research scientists centered around an economic initiative to promote Buffalo and create the Center of Excellence for Bioinformatics and Life Sciences as well as other advanced biomedical and engineering disciplines.

Total research expenditures for the fiscal year of 2017 were $401 million, ranking 59th nationally.

SUNY’s administrative offices are in Albany, the state’s capital, with satellite offices in Manhattan and Washington, D.C.

With 25,000 acres of land, SUNY’s largest campus is The SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, which neighbors the State University of New York Upstate Medical University – the largest employer in the SUNY system with over 10,959 employees. While the SUNY system doesn’t officially recognize a flagship university, the University at Buffalo and Stony Brook University are sometimes treated as unofficial flagships.

The State University of New York was established in 1948 by Governor Thomas E. Dewey, through legislative implementation of recommendations made by the Temporary Commission on the Need for a State University (1946–1948). The commission was chaired by Owen D. Young, who was at the time Chairman of General Electric. The system was greatly expanded during the administration of Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller, who took a personal interest in design and construction of new SUNY facilities across the state.

Apart from units of the unrelated City University of New York (CUNY), SUNY comprises all state-supported institutions of higher education.