An Advanced Grant funded by the European Research Council, starting in 2020, to use a multidisciplinary approach to generate a mechanistic understanding of coral skeleton growth and use this better understand the fate of coral reefs in the future.
The Great Barrier Reef from Space - ESA (https://www.esa.int/Applications/Observing_the_Earth/Earth_from_Space_the_Great_Barrier_Reef)
Coral Reefs are the largest bioconstructions on the planet. The 3d Framework of a reef is made by the skeletons of colonial scleractinian corals. Each colonies skeleton is constructed in a micron-sized space sandwiched between the existing skeleton and the coral animal. Schematic anatomy of colonial coral from Tambutte et al. (2011) labelled A and B
About
Coral Reefs are under threat from climate change, pollution and other local and global anthropogenic disturbances. Microns2Reefs will go beyond the state of the art by providing the mechanistic understanding needed to accurately predict their fate given the multifaceted and multifactorial anthropogenic threats they face.
Coral reefs provide many ecosystem functions, from coastal defence to sustaining fisheries. These, and many others, critically depend on the 3D framework of the reef made from the skeletons of Scleractinian corals. The coral biomineralisation tool kit is known but key questions remain:
What biomineralisation tools are most important?
What and how do environmental and biological factors limit and influence biomineralisation?
How does the environmental sensitivity of coral biomineralisation determine the diversity, resilience, and survivability of individual colonies and the entire reef?
The answers to these questions are key to inform the strategies needed to effectively manage these diversity hotspots and are placed into sharp focus by recent coral mass mortality events and the rapidity of anthropogenic climate change.
Microns2Reefs will produce a step change by integrating a raft of new and innovative scientific techniques to provide a mechanistic understanding of coral biomineralisation and hence coral reef resilience. Microns2Reefs has four objectives:
to develop a novel multimodal imaging technique to reconstruct the nature of the calcifying fluid and the biomineralisation process in 3D;
use this to build a detailed model of coral biomineralisation;
develop a mechanistic understanding of the relationship between environment and skeleton construction;
quantify the future resilience of corals and coral reefs in the face of multiple anthropogenic stressors.
Microns2Reefs is only now feasible due to recent analytical developments by The Foster Lab (see here for e.g.), exchange of knowledge and ideas from biomedical sciences, and advances in geochemistry and coral genomics. This cross disciplinary proposal draws heavliy upon the world-class facilities at the University of Southampton in Geochemistry, The Coral Reef Lab, high resolution X-Ray tomographic imaging in mu-VIS, and across the wider Univeristy.
Image Gallery:
A micro-CT scan of Pocillopora damicornis grown by Elisha Hayes and Tessa Page with Jonthan Erez at the Hebrew University in Israel as part of Microns2Reefs. Visualisation by Jacob Trend and scanning at muvis Southampton.
Snapshot of the micro-CT scan of Stylophora pistillata shown above.
A micro-Ct scan of Stylophora pistillata grown in the Coral Reef Laboratory at Southampton by Tessa Page. Visualisation by Jacob Trend and scanning at muvis Southampton.
Video showing how images from different techniques can be correlated to provide a deeper understanding of biominearlisation. Taken from Standish et al. (2024)
