What are corals?

Are they animals? Are they plants? What exactly are corals and why are they important? Aquarist Jay takes us to coral school and discusses his role in coral conservation.

Episode Transcript 

Relevant links:

Coral Reefs: Nature’s Underwater Cities

Helping to Restore a Coral Reef in Saipan

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:05

Hi, I'm Erin Lundy, and I'm Madeline Walton, and this is Aquarium of the Podcific. Podcast brought to you by Aquarium of the Civic. Southern California's largest aquarium.

SPEAKER_04 0:15

Join us as we learn alongside the experts in animal care, conservation, and more. Welcome back to Aquarium of the Podcific. I'm Erin Lundy, conservation coordinator for Mammals and Birds.

SPEAKER_03 0:27

And I'm Madeline Walton, the Aquarium's digital content and community manager. I was so caught up in your introduction that I got nervous. You're focusing on it.

SPEAKER_04 0:39

Animal question mark? Structure question mark. Um, that was enough. But which are one of the probably sort of less highlighted animals at the aquarium because people don't often know that they are, in fact, animals. And they are living beings and they are structures that are very meticulously cared for by our aquarists, which I'm very excited to learn about.

SPEAKER_03 1:00

Me too. They're so beautiful. If you visit the aquarium and you're able to see the exhibits with live coral, know that there's so much time and care that goes into them. And also some of them have been here since we opened in 1998. So a lot of our corals are charter animals, technically.

SPEAKER_04 1:14

That's crazy to think about. Some of the corals that we have here are also corals that have been confiscated for one reason or another. And so, because they are animals, they then need a home. And the aquarium is happy to provide a sort of refuge for those confiscated animals and allow them to really grow and develop here. Um, I see our aquarius sometimes diving for hours, just kind of like picking out little things of sand from our coral and really cleaning them up. And it seems like the most tedious and meticulous process, but also so meditative to be like under the garden. Yeah, it seems I'm very jealous. I have no idea how to take care of coral, but thankfully we're gonna be talking to Jay Harvey today, who is a corals expert and not only has taken care of coral here at the aquarium, but has also taken care of coral internationally.

SPEAKER_03 2:00

We're gonna get into his work with the C Core program and what that is exactly. So stay tuned for that. I'm excited about this one. It's gonna be too really, really educational. Cool. Well, without further ado, let's get into it and learn a little bit about corals. Hi, Jay. Thank you so much for being on the podcast today. We appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

Hi, thank you for having me. I'm excited.

SPEAKER_03 2:19

So we are gonna talk about corals and specifically corals here at the aquarium and then the sea core project. So I'll we'll ask what that is in a little bit. Um, but tell us a little bit about you at the aquarium. What's your job here? What do you do? What do you take care of?

SPEAKER_01 2:32

Yeah, so I am an aquarist here at the Aquarium of the Pacific. So that means I take care of fish and invertebrates. Um, and I work in our tropical Pacific gallery. So I work with mainly warm water things that live in and around coral reefs or in the tropics of the Pacific Ocean. So I work with kind of a large array of species, um, seahorses, um, a lot of big fish, small fish, cottle fish, all kinds of things, shrimp fish, lots of cool fish. Yeah, one fish, two fish, many fish. Um and then obviously I work a lot with corals. Um, so if you have explored our tropical gallery, you may have noticed that pretty much all of our exhibits in that gallery have some form of coral in them. Um, and so we kind of use that to kind of decorate our exhibits. It's kind of the focus of some exhibits. Um, so it's a big part of our jobs making corals happy here.

SPEAKER_04 3:33

Are they all live corals?

SPEAKER_01 3:35

Um, good question. So there are some exhibits, some of our bigger exhibits that have fake coral in them. So our big tropical reef exhibit has fake coral. Um, and then there is one exhibit just through the tunnel that is also fake coral.

SPEAKER_04 3:52

What's the advantage of using some of those artificial corals over real ones, or why might we do that?

SPEAKER_01 3:57

Yeah, so corals themselves are very sensitive, they're very tricky to keep happy and alive. Yeah, I identify with them on a daily basis. Um so it it can take a lot of work to keep them alive, and especially in a really big exhibit like Tropical Reef, it would take a lot, a lot of work. Um, so it's just less work on our end to have fake corals in there.

SPEAKER_03 4:21

So yeah, if you visit the aquarium and you explore a tropical Pacific gallery, you'll notice that a lot of the corals we have in there are really big, and some of them I think are even chartered animals, right? Because corals are animals. Yes, they are. We'll get into that in a second. A plus. Yay! And that's it.

SPEAKER_00 4:39

And they're also food for some of the fish, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:41

Yes. So we actually have a exhibit, that's the one I was mentioning, through the tunnel that's called our coral predators exhibit. So most of the animals in there are species that will actually eat coral.

SPEAKER_03 4:53

That's where Michael lives. Yes, one of them being our big parrot fish. His name is Michael.

SPEAKER_01 5:01

Common misconception. We call the fish Fish Michael and human Michael, human Michael. Human Michael, shout out to human twisted. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 5:08

To all human.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

Um but yeah, so we have uh parrot fish in there. Parrot fish like to eat coral. They have big, nice teeth that chomp through uh the coral skeletons, and they actually eat the skeleton, their body can actually process it and break it down, and so they poop out sand. Um so in that exhibit, we are constantly sucking out fish poop.

SPEAKER_04 5:33

Do you always have like extra sand in that exhibit? Like, does that's a weird question? So much sand in there. But does it like produce more sand? Oh yeah. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 5:42

Yeah, if you look, like if you're standing in front of the exhibit on the front left, that's where his poop sand accumulates.

SPEAKER_03 5:48

He has a toilet area. Literally. Aw, he's responsible. I feel like I think we might have to do like an entire podcast episode. That's Michael. Michael, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:56

Fish Michael again, not human Michael. The distinction is very important.

SPEAKER_04 6:01

Sorry, all human Michaels. Fish Michael has a litter box corner that's all sand. That's amazing. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_03 6:07

I think I think we will do the podcast episode all about coral predators specifically because it's such a interesting episode. About Fish Michael.

SPEAKER_04 6:14

I mean, I'll be in the human Michael. I heard a rumor when I was living in Hawaii that all of the beautiful white sandy beaches in Hawaii are a result of parrot fish poop. Yup. Yup. If you are ever on a beautiful tropical vacation in Hawaii, just know that you are enjoying a lot of parrot fish poop over the years. But it is beautiful and it makes for those beautiful white sandy beaches because that is all those coral skeletons that have been processing. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

Yeah, and there I I don't remember the exact number, but there's a crazy stat about how much sand a single parrot fish produces a year. It's wild.

SPEAKER_04 6:49

I think we should measure Michael's boobs and get an idea. That's a good study. We should and then we can sell it in the gift shop.

SPEAKER_03 6:56

Ooh, you know, people would buy people would absolutely buy that.

SPEAKER_01 7:00

Little bottles like on a chain. Michael's boobs close to my heart.

SPEAKER_04 7:06

That's amazing. So with all that being said, what is your favorite part of what you do?

SPEAKER_01 7:14

That is a great question. Um, honestly, my favorite part of what I do is watching guests enjoy my exhibits, um, because obviously so much time and effort goes into taking care of our exhibits on a daily basis, especially our coral exhibits. Um, and so when I actually get to spend time in front of our exhibits and watch guests, specifically young children, you know, connect with coral, connect with the animals that I care about, such as Fish Michael, and get excited about the things that I myself am so excited about. It's it makes all of that hard work very worth it.

SPEAKER_03 7:51

So that's incredible. That's awesome. Okay, let's get into what is a coral? Vod and what is it? Yeah. Tell us, at least. What is it?

SPEAKER_01 8:00

Yeah, so as you stated before, it is an animal. Um, a lot of people don't know that or have heard that and can't really connect with that when they're looking at it in an exhibit. So that's one of the main things we try and hammer home in our signage and in our exhibits is that these are live animals that have needs, just like you and I do. Um, and so they are actually quite complex organisms, even though if you're just looking at them, they might just look like a pretty rock that's just sitting there. Um, so they are animals. Some of their closest relatives are things like sea jellies and sea anemones. Um, and so they're kind of related to those um animals. They have a symbiont that lives within their tissues called zoosanthellae. Really fun word to impress your friends with.

SPEAKER_03 8:50

Everybody say it.

SPEAKER_01 8:53

Wow, that was satisfying. Um, and so that is what gives them their pretty colors. Um, it's a uh unicellular organism that lives within their tissues that does photosynthesis. Um so animals don't do photosynthesis, they do cellular respiration like you and I do. Um, but things like uh plants do photosynthesis, obviously, meaning they get their energy from the sun, turn that energy into nutrients that they use to power their cells. Um so the coral and the zoosanthellae live in harmony together and are able to survive in a part of the ocean that is relatively nutrient poor. Um so the zoozanthella is what allows the coral to be happy in the ocean.

SPEAKER_04 9:44

So if I was a coral, this is like if I had a little plant living in me that photosynthesized and then made energy for me.

SPEAKER_01 9:50

Right.

SPEAKER_04 9:51

That's cool. That's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

Yeah, so you wouldn't really have to eat at all. Oh my gosh. That would be so terrible. I need some zoosanthella.

SPEAKER_04 10:01

So I have a question. Are corals like a colony of animals, or are they one individual organism, or is it sort of like how cells make up our body to make one animal? Like what kind of is the deal? What are we looking at? Yeah, what are we looking at?

SPEAKER_01 10:14

So when you're looking at, you know, your classic coral, kind of a big maybe a few feet across attached to a rock, that is actually a colony of individual polyps, is what the individual unit is called, a coral polyp. And the polyp is the like unit of the organism, and then each poly polyp is a clone of itself. So it's a colony of clones that all kind of live together, and in the DNA of each specific species of coral, it dictates how it is shaped, how it is formed, how it grows, things like that. So yeah, if you zoom in and look really close at the skin or the skeleton of a coral, it looks like a bunch of tiny little C anemones in a row. And so that's what the little polyps look like. They're like little C anemones with tentacles sticking out of the skeleton, they have a little mouth that they can, you know, eat occasionally some food filtering by. Um and so it's a bunch of small little animals living together.

SPEAKER_04 11:20

Like jellies are nidarians? What are corals? They're also nadarians? Yeah, but that's pretty cool. I did not know that. Um how do they build their skeleton? I just have so many questions about corals in the world.

SPEAKER_01 11:33

Yeah, so their skeletons are made of calcium carbonate. Um, and so they basically are just constantly producing that when a new polyp is budding off to kind of continue growing a branch or spreading across a rock. Um, they are just kind of building that skeleton as they go, and it kind of just becomes part of their organism.

SPEAKER_00 11:55

And that's the same as like uh snail shells, right?

SPEAKER_01 11:58

Yes, I think it is. Yeah, so we are spider crabs, um, we supplement their food with calcium so they can build their shells. Same thing with our corals, um, we supplement calcium so that they can build those shells as well. Um and so that's why they're very sensitive to ocean acidification, buzzword. Um the the calcium skeletons are easily dissolved by acidity. So they're very sensitive.

SPEAKER_03 12:30

I'm very sensitive to, I get it. Um is there coral in almost every ocean or every region of the world? What about a deep sea coral coral? Yeah. Can you tell us a little bit about it?

SPEAKER_01 12:43

Yeah, so not all corals are photosynthetic. There are some that um don't do photosynthesis, they just are filter feeders like a sea anemone or a sea jelly would be. Um so yeah, we have corals here right off our coast. There's some on the Channel Islands. Um, we actually have one of our new exhibits in the Southern California gallery highlights some of those. They're called hydrocorals, um, and they look kind of like a sea fan, but they're kind of hard because they have that skeleton. Um, so yeah, corals are very fascinating, taxa, because they are so diverse, pretty much found worldwide, um, occupy so many different niches. Niches? Wow, I haven't said that word out loud in such a long time. That sounded so weird coming out of that. Yeah. Niche the golden niche.

SPEAKER_03 13:34

Don't tell us. Do not tell us.

SPEAKER_04 13:36

No one tells us how to pronounce it.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

Yeah, I want to go to my grave without knowing I'm right or done.

SPEAKER_04 13:40

I want to say it differently every time I say it. There we go, yeah. That's the tree. Niche. Make it French. Nike. Well, a couple of Nychees. Um, so you talked a little bit about like feeding our corals and supplementing them with calcium. What are you feeding corals?

SPEAKER_01 13:56

Yeah, so we are constantly feeding them uh plankton. We get uh frozen plankton, a lot of different kinds of copepods. Um you can actually buy at your local fish store. They're pretty easy to mass produce and freeze and ship out. Um, so we have constant supply of those that we just kind of disperse into our coral exhibits. Um, they get most of their energy from the photosynthesis that the zoazantheli do, but they are getting some nutrients from catching things in the water column.

SPEAKER_04 14:27

So it's those little polyps just grab onto the copepods.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

And it's actually interesting because the more that you feed them on a regular basis, the corals will learn that they should be reaching out those polyps more.

SPEAKER_02 14:39

So you can actually have longer polyps?

SPEAKER_01 14:41

Yeah, you can train them to have longer polyps.

SPEAKER_02 14:44

Yeah, that's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 14:46

You can really tell that more with like euphilias, right? And uh Right, exactly. Because they have the tentacles reaching out, so you can kind of see them actually reaching for it.

SPEAKER_01 14:53

Yeah, and so we try to feed our exhibits a lot because uh the corals look more striking.

SPEAKER_04 14:58

Oh, they're it makes them beautiful. Exactly. Food makes me beautiful too.

SPEAKER_00 15:04

It tells the opposite for me. What would you say the poster child is for corals?

SPEAKER_01 15:08

Ooh, the poster child? That's a great question. Brain coral. The I have always thought of the like thin branching corals as kind of the poster child. I was thinking or the genus is Acropora. Oh, kind of the yes, across if you're familiar with the hobby. Coral emoji. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Or the non-animal person in the room. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 15:31

Social media wing and the coral emoji. Is there an emoji that looks like it? Otherwise, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 15:37

Like, show me on the phone which one. Um so yeah, they, you know, are attached to the rock and then they form these like nice thin branches that all just kind of uniformly grow upwards, um, which I think are really cool. So a lot of times if you have seen um coral skeletons on someone's shelf at home or in a museum, that's kind of your typical colony.

SPEAKER_03 16:01

Why are corals important?

SPEAKER_01 16:03

Yeah, so they are, I like to compare coral reefs to like the Amazon rainforest. Um, so coral reefs are basically a hot spot for biodiversity in the ocean. Um I think I read recently the stat statistic is like coral reefs make up less than 1% of the ocean floor, but they are home to like 25% of all marine species, so fish and invertebrates. Um, so there are so many different species that call coral reefs home. And just like the Amazon rainforest wouldn't exist without the trees being there, creating that structure, coral reefs would not exist without the corals there, because they are the things that create the structure, the habitat, all the different space for animals to live, nutrients for other animals to eat, different things like that.

SPEAKER_04 16:57

So do they make a waste product? How do they excrete their waste like after they've eaten?

SPEAKER_01 17:03

Yeah, so because of the way that the zoosanthellae is the symbiont in their tissues to um do photosynthesis, just like a plant takes nutrients from the soil, the zoosanthella is taking nutrients from the coral animal to do photosynthesis. So that's the same thing.

SPEAKER_04 17:24

So it's like self-fertilizing itself? Do they sort of help with like eutrophication? Like do they pull nutrients out of the water?

SPEAKER_01 17:33

Um, not to the same extent that um like sponges or clams or mussels or things like that would, but I'm sure there is some element to that.

SPEAKER_04 17:41

Turns out everything's important. Right. It's crazy. That is the moral of this podcast. Everything is important. Everything is important. That's pretty crazy. Especially you. Yes. All of you listening are just as important as a sponge or a clam. Um, but that's pretty, I mean, corals really create like a home for all of the animals that when so many of the animals that we have exist in coral reefs, which is why there's coral in all of our habitats.

SPEAKER_02 18:06

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 18:07

They are pretty important, and that leads us to a very sad point that maybe corals aren't doing the best right now.

SPEAKER_01 18:12

Yes. As we have mentioned, corals are very sensitive just by the nature of where they live and the role that they play. Um, they are used to very stable conditions. The tropics, you know, are always warm, you know, not a ton of extreme weather, um, pretty much stable conditions all year round with some minor fluctuations. Um, and so because of that, corals are used to kind of the same conditions the whole time throughout their lives. So if anything gets even just a little bit off balance, they do not like that. Um, and so because of current trends with global warming, um, warming ocean temperatures, lowering pH of the oceans, um, a lot of human impacts on reefs across the world, um, they obviously are in decline because of how sensitive they are. And it's hard to, because of how slowly they grow, it's it's hard for them to easily bounce back like some other species are.

SPEAKER_04 19:15

Can you explain a little bit about the connection between how global warming impacts ocean acidification for people who might not be familiar?

SPEAKER_01 19:22

Yeah, so um there is a general increase in the amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere because of you know human production. Um, and so the ocean as a whole is a big sink for carbon dioxide, meaning a lot of the carbon dioxide in the air gets dissolved into the ocean. Um, and CO2 naturally is an acidic molecule, so dissolving more CO2 into a body of water will cause the pH to drop, meaning it gets a little more acidic. Um, the pH of the ocean is usually around 8.3 to 8.5. Um, and so it can drop below eight. Um, and that obviously is not great for even just a small change like that can affect the corals.

SPEAKER_04 20:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:15

Which is why it's tier emojis. Yeah. So I would love to chat about um what the aquarium is doing on site to help corals and then off-site to help corals. Um, I know that we have a program right now where we're able to accept um confiscated coral from local airports because we're here in LA. Can you talk a little bit about that program?

SPEAKER_01 20:37

Yeah, so we, because of where we're situated, we are very close to LAX, which obviously is a major airport. It's one of the first stops from a lot of shipping flights coming from East Asia, the Indo-Pacific, Australia. Um, and so there's beautiful corals. Yes, a lot where a lot of beautiful corals are. Um, and so periodically um we will get a call from US Fish and Wildlife saying, hey, we confiscated X number of corals. Do you guys have space to take them? Um and typically our answer is yes. Um, and so they they get these confiscations through different reasons. If someone doesn't have the right permits, if they're trying to smuggle corals in for some reason, um, different different situations like that. We don't really ask too many questions. Um we just say thank you. Um and usually they will drive it down here um and drop it off for us, which is great. We actually got a confiscation of corals today.

SPEAKER_03 21:37

Wow, really?

SPEAKER_01 21:39

Um just in bags? Yeah, so just in little bags of water. Um, it can really vary the condition that they come in. Um sometimes they've been sitting in those bags for a long time. Um, so the water is like very murky. Corals are super unhappy, but um typically they arrive in pretty good condition. Um and we can actually use them in our exhibits.

SPEAKER_04 22:03

Which is pretty good success with all of them. Yeah. Do you want to quarantine them the same way we do with other animals?

SPEAKER_01 22:08

Yeah. So we all of any new coral that's coming in, even if we're getting it from a different aquarium where we know it has done well, we will keep it behind the scenes kind of ideally in its own separate area. Um, but sometimes we don't quite have the space for that. But we'll keep a really close eye on it. We'll do a few different treatments just to make sure that it has no external parasites or bacterial infections or anything like that. Um, and we'll make sure that it is happy behind the scenes before we transfer it to an exhibit.

SPEAKER_04 22:40

I guess part of the reason I asked is we talked a lot about introduced species and introduced diseases, and so me being a frog person, like I always think about when you import frogs, Kittrid is a huge risk for them, and there are other diseases. Are there any sort of like typical coral diseases that you are looking out for? Like you test for this specific thing. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:01

Right. So we actually because I mean it's something we're always looking for as coral aquarius here because uh for our very established coral exhibits, um, it is very easy for parasites to get introduced into a big coral exhibit. It is very, very difficult to eradicate them. So we have to be extra, extra careful because it becomes so much work for us if we get some sort of infestation. Um, so some of the big things that we look for are um there's small little invertebrates that can live on coral tissue and slowly eat away at it. Um there's two different things. Yeah, extremely rude. Um the big one is Noodabranx. Um they almost look like you can see them with the naked eye if they're big enough, but they are like fuzzy and white. They look like almost like little sheep.

SPEAKER_04 23:57

Is it a specific nudobrank that eats coral?

SPEAKER_01 23:59

Yes. Yeah, and it's got some.

SPEAKER_00 24:02

A lot of zoas, right? And soft corals.

SPEAKER_01 24:05

Well, we the the one that we get a lot here is um Montipora eating Nudibranx, which is a specific species of stony coral. Um and so they will usually they will like hide underneath the coral. Sneaky. And then at night will like come out and eat the coral, and they will like lay their eggs underneath. It's a whole thing. Um one of the other big ones that we get. I could not tell you off the top of my head exactly what kind of animal they are, but we just call them red bugs. Um they are tiny little red dots, and they their main prey is across Acropora, which is our the um coral emoji, the emoji coral, yes. Um and so we have had issues with those in the past. So those are the two big ones that we look for. Um, and then also just uh bacterial infection is a big one that can spread easily. And so that's just looking at just the general tissue of the coral. If you know if some of it is like slimy or sloughing off or turning white on one side, um, that's easier for us to spot.

SPEAKER_00 25:10

And those are called hitchhikers, right?

SPEAKER_01 25:11

Yes, yes, hitchhikers that we don't like, unfortunately. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:17

Does aptasia ever coming on corals, or is that something more so just the live rock?

SPEAKER_01 25:20

Yeah, it it's more so the live rock, because aptasia, for those of you that aren't familiar, are small little anemones um that are basically like a weed in your garden. They will grow like crazy on any sort of rock inside of an aquarium. Um, and they are very, very hard to get rid of because if you try to scrape them off or suck them up, they will just say, oh my god, I need to spawn, and they'll create like a hundred more.

SPEAKER_04 25:46

Um no, I need a hundred more.

SPEAKER_01 25:48

I need to repopulate because the world is opening.

SPEAKER_04 25:50

Honestly, it's a really good evolutionary strategy. Genius.

SPEAKER_00 25:54

Yes, but for us, it's very I want to learn that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:57

Not ideal for an aquarium. A hundred spots. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 26:01

I'd still be so unproductive.

SPEAKER_03 26:05

So funny. Why are people smuggling corals? Why are people obtaining them illegally and trying to bring them through the airport?

SPEAKER_01 26:12

What's your purpose? So there is a very large industry of hobby aquarists, people that have coral reef tanks at home, which is great. Obviously, that's exciting. We love people connecting with the ocean like that, but it has created a huge market for corals being sold. Um, and so there are, you know, legal markets to sell those corals, but you know, you always have people trying to skirt skirt things.

SPEAKER_03 26:41

Do you see a lot too, or or potentially a lot of people just kind of wanting a souvenir from their trip and just thinking, oh, this will look good on my shelf later.

SPEAKER_01 26:49

Yeah, yeah. Um typically that's in the form of coral skeletons that people take. I would be shocked if someone, you know, was trying to bring home a live coral. But I'm sure there are people that are adventurous enough to want to do that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:05

Or there's been problems where people go to local fish stores and they try to put corals in with their goldfish. Right, right. Some horror stories, you know.

SPEAKER_01 27:12

Yeah, some people well, because goldfish are freshwater, corals are saltwater.

SPEAKER_00 27:18

Don't yeah, not recommended.

SPEAKER_03 27:20

Well, then let's get into C Core, our external um conservation effort. What is C Core?

SPEAKER_01 27:26

Yeah, so C Core is a nonprofit organization that the aquarium supports um both financially and with manpower. Um so uh C Core itself stands for yes, I mean J Power. Um C Core stands for sexual coral reproduction. So S E is sexual. Did not know that until someone spelled that out for me. Uh it kind of blows people's minds. Um so S E sexual C O coral R E reproduction. So they are focused on um rebuilding coral reefs, and mainly focusing on how to best um have corals reproduce sexually, um, which we can talk about in a sec. But they they are trying to develop specific techniques um that are the most efficient way for nurseries in different island nations to create new corals that can then be outplanted onto an affected reef. Um, and so their main focus is coming up with the best techniques that can then be upscaled at um a much bigger scale to have the biggest effect possible. So they're not necessarily focused on, you know, trying to solve global warming or trying to solve coral reefs in crisis. They're focusing on how best to repopulate.

SPEAKER_04 28:51

Is C Cor an organization or a program?

SPEAKER_01 28:54

Um it's an organization, it's you know, its own company, they have staff, they have um funding, all this different stuff.

SPEAKER_04 29:02

Um and they primarily sort of do they work to bring experts together to sort of talk about here's the best way we can grow these corals? Like is your contribution to that partially manpower, but also your expertise from the aquarium?

SPEAKER_01 29:15

Yeah, so we will provide input on um, you know, obviously our our expertise here at the aquarium is keeping corals happy in a contained system. Um, and so that's not something that you know a lot of coral researchers have a ton of experience with. Um so we provide our input with that. But C Core itself, their main focus is partnering with um organizations around the world. So they have partner organizations a lot in the Caribbean. I think Bonaire is one of their main sites. Um I was out in Saipan in the Pacific, so at the these different island nations that they go to, they kind of partner with a local organization or a local lab there and help them develop their own practices kind of using the C core method um in order to make that a more successful um project.

SPEAKER_04 30:16

That's awesome. I don't think I really knew a lot about it. You know, I would always hear like, oh, this Aquarius went to Seacor this year, and I didn't really understand what it was. So do you have experience here in breeding corals? Is that something that you also bring to the table? Is that something that do they breed them in a contained system? Like I have a lot of questions. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:36

Yeah, so I guess taking a step back, the way that corals reproduce, there are kind of two main methods being asexual reproduction and sexual reproduction. So one of the cool things about coral is that you can like break off a branch, put it somewhere else, and that branch that has broken off will continue to grow, and the parent colony that you broke it off from will also continue to grow. Um so that is an easy way to take one coral and make a bunch of new corals, is just by fragging. Fragging short for fragmentation.

SPEAKER_02 31:11

Yeah. Yeah, I would say that's the same.

SPEAKER_01 31:14

Um so we we will actually do that fairly often here at the aquarium. You know, if we have a coral that is doing so well in one exhibit, it's kind of outgrowing its space, we want to populate other smaller exhibits, we can break off small pieces, move them to the other exhibits, they'll continue to grow. Exactly. Yeah. But the downside of that in a restoration sense is that all of those fragments that you have created are still genetically exactly the same as the parent colony. So it is a good method if you were just trying to create more coral cover to create habitat for more animals, but from an ecosystem sense, it's not great. Because you want yes, diverse genetics.

SPEAKER_00 31:58

So that's theoretically though, could it just grow indefinitely? Yeah. Wow. Yeah, corals are wild.

SPEAKER_04 32:04

They are wild.

SPEAKER_00 32:06

Let me know. Is there like an oldest coral that we know of?

SPEAKER_01 32:08

Um, you know, I I'm sure there is some coral somewhere that is the oldest coral that people have tested. But I that they can live like thousands of years. Wow. So yeah, they have carbon dated a lot. Um but that's how they reproduce.

SPEAKER_03 32:25

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 32:26

So they can reproduce asexually, and then they also do sexual reproduction, um, which is where colonies will release gametes into the water, sperm and eggs get released into the water, um, and they will mix together and form new corals that will then settle and create genetically distinct corals.

SPEAKER_04 32:48

Like one little guy will settle and he'll start like cloning himself over and over again until it's so cute to imagine, just like the one polyp, like here's good, you know, like just starting the whole thing. He turns into grandpa coral two. He's so cute. I love him. Honestly. He just made like a whole city, you know, just by himself. Good for him. It's so selfless. He's a good guy. He's a really good guy. I love that. So they prioritize sexual reproduction for corals specifically because it increases the diversity. Right. Is any part of the project increasing resilience to ocean acidification or temperature changes or anything like that?

SPEAKER_01 33:28

So kind of indirectly, um, because they are collecting gametes from corals typically on a reef that is already kind of at risk or declining. Um, the corals that are still there are the ones that are the hardiest because they have been able to survive whatever conditions have been coming in. Um and so by reproducing those corals, we know that they are more resilient to whatever changes might be happening at the current time at a given location.

SPEAKER_03 34:04

Now, are we bringing back any of the fragmented corals or the or not the fragmented, but the corals you're producing um with C Core in different countries? Um, or bringing them back here? We have in the past.

SPEAKER_01 34:16

We have not in a few years, um, because I mean it's mainly just for educational purposes for us. You know, it's not easy for us to then ship it back to them after a certain point and they can outplant it. Um so it is something we have done in the past, but we have not done that recently.

SPEAKER_04 34:34

What was your overall experience like going to Saipan and participating in this project? How long were you there and sort of what was it like day to day? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:43

So I was there for two weeks. Um beginning of July. I flew out July 4th.

SPEAKER_04 34:49

Um America's birthday.

SPEAKER_01 34:52

Yeah. It was interesting because I flew across the international dateline, so I like skipped a full day, so I kind of missed most of July 4th. Yeah. Don't don't tell America. I missed it. Um but yeah, so Saipan itself, if people aren't familiar, is actually American soil. It's a small little island right next to Guam. It's part of the Northern Marianas Islands, so it's very close to the Marianas Trench. Um it's like a three-hour flight from Eastern Asia. Um, so it's culturally a very interesting place because it is American soil, so signs are in English. You know, most people speak English there, there is an American presence, but historically, you know, obviously there's a native population that has lived there. It at one point was um Japanese territory, it was German at one point, it was Spanish way back when. Um, and so it's kind of this interesting hodgepodge of cultures that make it kind of a very distinct place. It's it's very interesting. And then so much good food because of that, you know, all those different cultures have contributed. Um, but it was also a very important site in World War, I believe it was World War II. Um, and so because of that, there's a lot of uh memorials and war relics. There's like tanks that are just out in the lagoon that have rusted because no one has cleaned that up. Um and clean up your tank. So it's it's got a fascinating history. Um, but it's a very cool little place. It's a small island, it's like 12 miles long and five miles wide. Um so not not super big. Um, but we were partnering with C Corps was partnering with a local organization there called Jams. Um Johnston Applied Marine Science.

SPEAKER_02 36:56

Jams.

SPEAKER_01 36:57

Um and it's led by a scientist, Liza Johnston, who is from the US, she's from Florida, um, and she has since moved out to Saipan and started this organization to focus on coral reef restoration, which is super cool. That's awesome. Um and so C Corps got a grant with her to partner and kind of develop her techniques out there. Um, and so we were working with her. Um, and so my role there was basically just manpower. I was a dive buddy whenever they needed to go out to do something. If that was looking at the coral nursery, scrubbing tiles, making sure things were hunky-dory out there, and then also helping with the spawning dives where we go out at night after the full moon and collect the gametes.

SPEAKER_04 37:47

Um connected to the full moon? Yeah, no, they spawn with the moon? Yes.

SPEAKER_01 37:52

So corals, I because werewolves the earwolves. Um so the way that corals will spawn is the different species will all spawn at the same time. Well so, like all individuals, in theory, of one species will spawn at once. Okay. And then a little bit later, a different species will go off. Um, and so these researchers that live there year-round know the reefs, know the corals. They knew pretty much exactly how many days after the full moon they were gonna spawn and like how many minutes after sunset they spawned.

SPEAKER_03 38:35

So specific.

SPEAKER_01 38:35

Yeah, and so she had a schedule and she's like, okay, we need to be out there by 7.15 because by 7.30 they're gonna be going off, and then at 7.45 the other species is gonna go off. Yeah. Um, and so it's so you have to they are crazy.

SPEAKER_03 38:51

Secor plans these trips around the moon cycle, maybe.

SPEAKER_01 38:54

Which is why happened to be on July 4th, because the full moon I think was on July 5th.

SPEAKER_04 38:59

That's when the moon is.

SPEAKER_01 39:00

So you can't change that.

SPEAKER_04 39:02

I think it's really cool to, you know, when you think about these projects, how important local ecological knowledge is. Yeah. And sometimes even like traditional ecological knowledge is so important to just understand what's happening in the environment, and you can't know those specific things unless you've been there observing it. Right, exactly. And it's crazy to me that someone's like, hey, it's 747, there's gonna be a huge spawn, so we better get out of there.

unknown 39:25

That's so cool.

SPEAKER_01 39:26

And it was interesting too because there were local dive groups not associated with us at all that were also coming out at certain times at night because they just wanted to watch the coral spawn, just from like a tourism spectating perspective. So there's a very big like local cultural connection to the reefs, which is really cool. Yeah, what does it look like? Yeah, so I they have shown it a bunch on Planet Earth a few times, but it's turns out I gotta watch Planet Earth. Yeah, it's very good. Um dramatic music to it.

SPEAKER_04 39:57

Yeah, I'm sure it makes your heart like swell. Yeah, like whoa, it's a lot of things.

SPEAKER_01 40:01

It was very cool actually seeing it in person. Um, but it's if you can imagine all of the little polyps on a coral head, each one of those polyps is gonna produce a um gamete bundle, so they will kind of package sperm and eggs in one little bundle, and then it will just kind of pop out of the polyp. But all of the polyps will release it at the exact same time. Um, and so it's kind of depends on the species, but it's kind of like the the size of like a head of a pencil or a pen head. Um so it is visible, yeah. There's small little specks, but you know when it's happening, and they float, so they all just kind of get released at the same time.

SPEAKER_04 40:43

Oh do they like meet at the surface and then sink and settle?

SPEAKER_01 40:47

So they float up to the surface, um, and then the wave action is what causes them to kind of break apart the bundles, and then everything kind of mixes together from different colonies, and then that I mean that's fertilization happening. So as soon as that happens, they start growing. Um, and then after you know, 24, 48 hours, they'll start to sink down and find a good spot to settle.

SPEAKER_03 41:11

Oh, those little guys, that's really cute. So cool. What about here at the aquarium? Have you do do our corals spawn?

SPEAKER_01 41:17

So we have corals that will spawn here. Um it is not purposeful on our part. You know, we're not trying to make them spawn.

SPEAKER_04 41:26

The moon here? How do you know?

SPEAKER_01 41:28

It's I mean, we have different light cycles, so I think some of them are keyed in on that. I think sometimes they it's just been a while, and so they just kind of need to release it, you know. Um yeah, we will come in and there will be, you know, eggs at the surface, or sometimes we will even see some, like right as the lights are turning on first thing in the morning, we can still see coral spawning. Um, but we have never tried to, um, at least in recent years since I've been here, we have never tried to like get those gametes and try and settle just because it's such a work-intensive process. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 42:07

Well, thank you so for sharing so much about what C Core was like. I that's cool. I didn't know very much about what the project was, and it's really cool to see the aquarium having an impact sort of globally, also. Yeah, definitely. Knowing that you went out to Saipan and you helped sort of spawn these corals and like work on restoration work is pretty awesome. Um our last couple questions are our social media questions that um we did touch on why corals are important. Um, but one of the people actually asked, How successful has coral restoration been so far?

SPEAKER_01 42:40

That's that's a great question that I I don't have you know obvious hardcore statistics on, but I think there are more and more organizations popping up working on coral restoration, and a lot of it is usually pretty site-specific. Um, a lot of local governments are creating organizations that will focus on restoration in a specific area or creating funding for organizations to be successful. Um, and so it it definitely has helped, you know, it's obviously not hurting, um, and especially just from like a cultural impact in those specific communities on small islands, um, creating that connection with the local community and the coral reefs is super important. Um, so even just that is a big win.

SPEAKER_04 43:29

Educating people about the problems are, you know, I think that helps too. Um, speaking of another social media question is how can I help with coral respiration, not me specifically. Aaron helping help. Aaron's pretty useless as it really but how can this person help? And what can they do besides just kind of learning about it, spreading the word, and donating to the cause? Like, is there anything sort of focused that an individual can do to help?

SPEAKER_01 43:55

Yeah, I uh unfortunately it's kind of the same answer that I'm sure they've heard before. Or you know, because global warming is the main factor for coral reef um degradation, you know, reducing your carbon footprint, carpooling to work, riding your bicycle. Um, I have one.

SPEAKER_04 44:16

Yeah. A coral safe sunscreen. That's a thing. Yes, that is a thing.

SPEAKER_01 44:20

That's a good one.

SPEAKER_04 44:21

What is in sunscreen that's killing coral?

SPEAKER_01 44:23

I'm gonna I think it's oxybenzone. Okay. I should have said that with more confidence because it would have sounded right.

SPEAKER_04 44:30

But that is a component of some sunscreens, and so if you are going out in an area where there are corals and that's in your sunscreen, that gets in the water and that can kill corals. So if you look for reef safe sunscreen, that should not include the ingredients that are harmful. So that is what you can do.

SPEAKER_01 44:46

Yeah. And another big one too is just supporting politicians and legislation that are focused on environmental issues and pushing forward, you know, legislation that is focused on reducing emissions, XYZ, all of that.

SPEAKER_03 45:01

But could corals be used for medical purposes?

SPEAKER_01 45:04

Have corals been used in any sort of medical research, like I know of I mean, I I don't know of any hard and fast specifics, but I I would imagine there has to be some research being done on the way that they can be fragmented and continue to grow, um, especially because of their, you know, calcium-based skeleton. Obviously, we also have a calcium-based skeleton. What? We're the same. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 45:25

I am a coral.

SPEAKER_01 45:26

That would be cool if we could, you know, like break a bone and then two more. And then grow it on the second arm out of my arm?

SPEAKER_03 45:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 45:34

That'd be great.

SPEAKER_03 45:35

Really? You could type so fast.

SPEAKER_04 45:37

If every time you broke your bone, you grew another of whatever broke, it would be questionable. You'd have a big one.

SPEAKER_03 45:42

And then a fish ate your broken bone and turned it into sand. Whoa. And that's Hawaii. Come on.

SPEAKER_00 45:49

Origin story.

SPEAKER_03 45:52

Okay, last question. Is there hope for corals on our planet?

SPEAKER_01 45:56

I think so. Like I said, you know, watching people interact with my exhibits, you know, seeing those corals, seeing how beautiful they are. People obviously want to help corals. Um, they're so beautiful. And, you know, once you start learning more about corals and coral reefs, you realize how important they are for the ocean. Um, and just, you know, getting more people on board with we have to prioritize these things in order to kind of save these really delicate communities. Um, I think I think there is hope there.

SPEAKER_03 46:27

Yeah, you really if you visit the aquarium, you know, you really get to see the full picture. You're seeing you know, up close these animals, these creatures that are keeping our oceans uh healthy and safe for other animals. Losing my train of thought as I'm going here. But I think all of the animals here at the aquarium are great ambassadors for their species in the ocean.

SPEAKER_01 46:46

So and I think especially here in Southern California, you know, a lot of us that have grown up here, you don't really ever get to see a coral reef in person unless you're like going to Hawaii for a family occasion. So having kids being able to actually see them in person in an exhibit and identify, hey, that's a coral. Hey, I should care about this. This is cool.

SPEAKER_04 47:08

They look so beautiful. Like that's the thing people are strikingly beautiful on the fact that they are hideous. Right, yeah. Genuinely, I think that that sometimes is a factor in whether or not people are.

SPEAKER_00 47:26

Like, what is it, the sun corals, the little spiraly ones? Yes, yeah. Those are crazy. Are they a type of gorgonian? What are they?

SPEAKER_01 47:32

Yeah, yeah, they're closely related to Gorgonians. Um they they look like pipe cleaners.

SPEAKER_00 47:37

But filter feeders and photosynthetic, correct?

SPEAKER_01 47:40

They are non-photosynthics. At least the ones that I'm thinking of. I don't know if you're seeing it.

SPEAKER_03 47:44

We have those in um tropical right now, right?

SPEAKER_01 47:46

Debrief. They're very cool. They look like uh something out of Dr. Seuss.

SPEAKER_03 47:51

They really do. It's beautiful. Yeah, they're sitting up there. Cool. Thank you, Jay, so much for talking to us today. I learned so much. And every time we every time someone talks to me about corals, I'm just like, oh, whoa, okay. Yeah. I get it. No, I don't. But I'm gonna listen to this podcast a thousand times. I get it more than I did.

SPEAKER_04 48:08

I understand slightly more. And now I just think of them as just one little guy who's doing a lot of things. Yeah, a little crazy guy. I just love that they're all the same little guy and they made a city. They work so hard. And they do so much. They're doing it. We gotta protect them. So, everyone, stop using non-readsing sunscreen and do what you can to help out the ocean because it is important. But thanks, Jay. It's been awesome. Of course. I know everything about corals now. You're an expert. Save our ocean. Yeah. Yeah. That's the hashtag at the end of every podcast. Save the ocean.

SPEAKER_03 48:43

Aquarium of the Pacific is brought to you by Aquarium of the Pacific, a 501 C3 nonprofit organization. In 2023, the Aquarium celebrates 25 years of connecting millions of people worldwide to the beauty and wonder of our ocean planet. Head to aquariumofpacific.org to learn more about our 25th anniversary celebration. Keep up with the Aquarium on social media at Aquarium Pacific on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_04 49:09

This podcast is produced by Aaron Lundy, Madeline Walden, and Scott Shaw. Our music is by Andrew Reitzma, and our podcast art is by Brandi Kenney. Special thanks to Cecile Fisher, Anita Vias, and our audiovisual and education departments, and to all of our amazing podcast guests for taking time out of their day to talk about the important work that they do. Podcific wouldn't be possible without the support of the aquarium's donors, members, guests, and supporters. Thanks for listening.