A Stanford-led study has found that bleached corals can recover faster when briefly placed in contact with healthy clones of the same genetic individual. In laboratory conditions, some corals showed the start of recovery after just days of contact and fully recovered within seven weeks. It is an encouraging experimental result for coral restoration, but further work is needed before applying it to whole reefs in the ocean.
Coral colonies recover after brief contact with healthy clones.
In Stanford laboratory experiments, severely bleached corals recovered within seven weeks after touching healthy, genetically identical corals.
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