Stanford researchers found that direct contact with a healthy genetic match can help bleached coral regain its algae and recover, offering a possible new approach to coral restoration.
The laboratory study, published October 14 in Science Advances, tested fragments of cauliflower coral, a species whose microscopic algal partners provide much of its food. When ocean heat stresses coral, it can expel those algae, turn white and become vulnerable to starvation. In the experiments, healthy and bleached fragments that touched fused tissue, forming a connection through which algae and nutrients could pass.
The algae began moving into bleached tissue within days; brief contact could start a recovery that continued after fragments were separated, with full recovery reported within seven weeks. The rescue depended on a genetic match: different-genet pairings triggered antagonistic interactions rather than the same tissue-fusion process. Researchers say the finding is promising, but it has been demonstrated in a lab—not yet as a way to restore whole reefs.