Kristen Marhaver: the marine biologist pioneering coral conservation
Baby pillar coral, being bred in quarantine, at six months. Image by Kristen Marhaver
She is one of the most compelling figures in ocean conservation. Kristen Marhaver, a marine biologist and TED and WEF star, has made coral regeneration sexy. She tells Darius Sanai that rapid scientific advance and philanthropic support are combining to make the idea of regrowing the world?s coral a real prospect
Kristen Marhaver. Image by Bret Hartman.
LUX: Why has there been so much positive progress in coral science recently"
Kristen Marhaver: For a long time, nobody knew how corals reproduced. We assumed most corals spat out little swimming baby corals. It was only around 30 or 40 years ago that mass spawning of corals was discovered and that?s because it only happened a few nights a year. If you?re in the water one hour too late or two days too early, you won?t ever see it. We always had in the back of our minds that the more we understood about reproduction, the more we could help promote coral reproduction in the wild. Follow LUX on Instagram:Â luxthemagazine
When I started my research career, we would watch corals reproduce and collect their eggs and raise them through the first couple of days or weeks of life and that was it. It was extraordinarily difficult to make progress and most of the coral community thought that there was no way that this would ever lead to something you could apply in conservation. All of a sudden, things just started to click and every year we made ...
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