Coral reef cryogenic plan gets under way

Ben Cubby -

An ambitious plan to create a ''coral bank'' of frozen reef polyps so that they can survive extinction is being developed by Australian researchers.

The proposal would mean that as sections of the Great Barrier Reef are eroded by global warming, ocean acidification and coral bleaching events, they could be repopulated from embryos stored at Taronga Zoo.

''This is really an insurance program to take the coral out of an uncertain situation and put it in a place that is 100 per cent safe for a very long time,'' said the zoo's manager of research and conservation, Rebecca Spindler.

''When you store organic material at minus 296 degrees [Fahrenheit] it can stay at that point forever because matter simply cannot break down.''

The zoo's liquid nitrogen tanks already hold the sperm and eggs of a menagerie of animal species, including 300 genetically different rhinos, but the coral plan will be a first.

''What we need to be able to do is be in a position to bring back those ecosystems that die immediately - this is about getting the tools and the training now so we don't have to do it in haste later,'' Dr Spindler said.

The plan will draw on the zoo's expertise for cryogenic freezing as well as researchers at Monash University and the Australian Institute of Marine Science, which is a world leader in the study of coral.

The participants have in mind training marine scientists from across the Pacific to collect coral sperm, eggs and embryos when coral species spawn.

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