May 21, 2024 • 49 mins
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.
Relevant links:
Coral Reefs: Nature’s Underwater Cities
Helping to Restore a Coral Reef in Saipan
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:06):
Hi, I'm Erin Lundy.
And I'm Madeline Walden and thisis Aquarium of the Podcific, a
podcast brought to you byAquarium of the Podcific.
Southern California's largest aquarium.
Join us as we learned alongsidethe experts in animal care,
conservation and more.
Welcome back to Aquarium of thePodcific. I'm Erin Lundy,
conservation coordinator formammals and birds.
(00:27):
And I'm Madeline Walden, theQuarians digital content and
community manager. I was socaught up in your introduction
that I got nervous, you'refocusing on this, what are we
gonna talk about today? Todaywe're talking about a very
interesting plant. Questionmark. And the question marks
question mark. That was enough.But morals, which are one of the
probably sort of lesshighlighted animals at the
(00:48):
aquarium because people don'toften know that they are, in
fact, animals, and they areliving beings and they are
structures that are verymeticulously cared for by our
Aquarius, which I'm very excitedto learn about me to they're so
beautiful if you visit theaquarium 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
(01:10):
here since we opened in 1998. Soa lot of our corals are charter
animals, technically, that'scrazy to think about. Some of
the corals that we have here arealso corals that have been
confiscated for one reason oranother. And so because they are
animals, they then need a homeand the aquarium is happy to
provide a sort of refuge forthose confiscated animals and
allow them to really grow anddevelop here. I see our Aquarius
(01:32):
sometimes diving for hours, justkind of like picking out little
things of sand from our coraland really cleaning them up. And
it seems like the most tediousand meticulous process but also
so meditative to be like, underthe sun. Yeah, it seems so yeah,
I'm very jealous, I have no ideahow to take care of coral. But
thankfully, we're gonna betalking to Jay Harvey today who
is a corals expert, and not onlyhas taken care of coral here at
(01:55):
the Aquarium, but has also takencare of coral. Internationally,
we're gonna get into his workwith the C Corp program and what
that is exactly, so stay tunedfor that. I'm excited about this
one, it's gonna be really,really educational. Cool. Well,
without further ado, let's getinto it and learn a little bit
about coral.
Hi Jay, thank you so much forbeing on the podcast today. We
(02:18):
appreciate it. Hi, thank you forhaving me. I'm excited. So we
are going to talk about corals,and specifically corals here at
the Aquarium and then the C Corpproject. So we'll ask what that
is in a little bit. But tell usa little bit about you at the
aquarium. What's your job here?What do you do? What do you take
(02:39):
care of? Yeah, so I am anaquarist here at the Aquarium at
the Pacific. So that means Itake care of fish and
invertebrates. And I work in ourtropical Pacific gallery. So I
work with mainly warm waterthings that live in and around
coral reefs or in the tropics ofthe Pacific Ocean. So I work
with kind of a large array ofspecies, seahorses. A lot of big
(03:01):
fish smell fish, cuddle fish,shrimp fish, lots of cool fish.
Yeah, One Fish, Two Fish, many.
And then obviously, it worked alot with corals. So if you have
explored our tropical gallery,you may have noticed that pretty
much all of our exhibits in mygallery have some form of coral
in them. And so we kind of usethat to kind of decorate our
(03:26):
exhibits. It's kind of the focusof some exhibits. So it's a big
part of our jobs making coralshappy here. Are they all live
corals? Good question. So thereare some exhibits some of our
bigger exhibits that have fakecoral in them. So our big
tropical reef exhibit has fakecoral. And then there is one
(03:47):
exhibit just through the tunnel.That is also fake coral. What's
the advantage of using some ofthose artificial corals over
real ones? Or why might we dothat? Yeah. So corals themselves
are very sensitive. They're verytricky to keep happy and alive.
Yeah, identify with them.
(04:07):
So it can take a lot of work tokeep them alive. And especially
in a really big exhibit liketropical reef, it would take a
lot, a lot of work. So it's justless work on our end to have
fake corals in there. Yeah, ifyou visit the aquarium and you
explore a tropical Pacificgallery, you'll notice that a
lot of the corals we have inthere are really big. And some
(04:28):
of them I think are evenchartered animals, right? Corals
are animals. Yes, they are. Aplant. Yeah. And that's it.
And they're also food for someof the fish, right? Yes. So we
actually have a exhibit. That'sthe one I was mentioning through
the tunnel. That's called ourcoral predators exhibit. So most
(04:50):
of the animals in there arespecies that will actually eat
coral.
Yes, one of them being ourfavorite big parrot fish. His
name is Michael Michael.
A
common misconception
is fish Michael and humanMichael human Michael Michael.
don't mean like twisted Exactly.
(05:13):
But yeah, so we have a pair offish in their pair of fish like
to eat coral. They have big,nice teeth that jump through the
coral skeletons. And theyactually eat the skeleton, their
body can actually process it andbreak it down and so they poop
out sand. So in that exhibit, weare constantly sucking out. fish
(05:33):
poop. Do you? Like extra sand inthat exhibit like this? That's a
weird.
Constantly, like produce morething? Oh, yeah, that's crazy.
If you work like if you'restanding in front of the exhibit
on the front left, that's wherehis poop sand accumulate. He has
a toilet area. He's responsible.I feel like I think we might
(05:53):
have to do like an episode.That's Michael Michael. Michael
again.
The distinction is veryimportant. All human Michael
fish. Michael has a litter boxcorner. Yeah, it's all seen.
That's amazing. That's amazing.I think I think we will do a
podcast episode all about coralpredators, specifically because
it's such a interesting to sayfish, Michael about fish,
(06:13):
Michael. I mean, they'll be inYeah.
I heard a rumor when I wasliving in Hawaii that all of
those beautiful white sandybeaches in Hawaii are a result
of parrot fish poop. Yep.You're, if you're ever on a
beautiful tropical vacation inHawaii, just know that you are
enjoying a lot of ferret fishpoop over the years. But it is
(06:35):
beautiful. And it makes forthose beautiful white sandy
beaches, because that is allthose coral skeletons that have
been processed. Exactly. Yeah.And I don't remember the exact
number. But there's a crazy statabout how much sand a single
pair of fish produces a year.It's wild. I think we should
measure my
good.
That's a good study. We shouldand then we can tell them the
(06:55):
gift shop? Oh,
absolutely.
Michael's most of my heart.
That's amazing. So
with all that being said, whatis your favorite part of what
you do? That is a greatquestion. Honestly, my favorite
(07:17):
part of what I do is watchingguests enjoy my exhibits.
Because obviously so much timeand effort goes into taking care
of our exhibits on a dailybasis, especially our coral
exhibits. And so when I actuallyget to spend time in front of
our exhibits and watch guests,specifically on children, you
(07:39):
know, connect with coral connectwith the animals that I care
about, such as fish, Michael,
get excited about the thingsthat I myself I'm so excited
about it's it makes all of thathard work very worth it. So
that's incredible. That'sawesome. Okay, let's get into
what is a coral? What is it?Yeah.
(08:00):
What is it? Yeah, so as youstated before, it is an animal.
A lot of people don't know thator have heard that and can't
really connect with that whenthey're looking at it in an
exhibit. So that's one of themain things we try and hammer
home in our signage and in ourexhibits is that these are live
animals that have needs justlike you and I do. And so they
(08:21):
are actually quite complexorganisms, even though if you're
just looking at them, they mightjust look like a pretty rock
that's just sitting there. Sothey are animals. Some of their
closest relatives are thingslike sea jellies and sea
anemones. And so they're kind ofrelated to those animals, they
have a symbiotic that liveswithin their tissues called Zoho
(08:45):
Zambelli really fun word toimpress your friends with. So
everybody said.
And so that is what gives themtheir pretty colors. It's a
unicellular organism that liveswithin their tissues that does
photosynthesis. So animals don'tdo photosynthesis. They do
(09:09):
cellular respiration like youand I do. But things like plants
do photosynthesis, obviously,meaning they get their energy
from the sun turn that energyinto nutrients that they use to
power their cells. So the coralAmazo is Anthalie live in
harmony together and are able tosurvive in a part of the ocean
(09:35):
that is relatively nutrientpoor. So the Zambelli is what
allows the coral to be happy inthe ocean. So if I was a coral,
this is like if I had a littleplant living in me that
photosynthesize and made energyfor me, right? That's cool.
That's pretty cool. Yeah, so youwouldn't really have to eat at
all.
(10:01):
So, I have a question. Arecorals like a colony of animals?
Or are they one individualorganism? Or is it sort of like
how cells make up our body tomake one animal? Like, what kind
of is the deal? What are welooking at? What are we looking
at. So when you're looking at,you know, your classic coral,
kind of a big, maybe a few feetacross attached to a rock, that
(10:22):
is actually a colony ofindividual polyps is what the
individual unit is called acoral polyp. And the polyp is
the like unit of the organism.And then each pilot is polyp is
a clone of itself. So it's acolony of clones that all kind
of live together. And in the DNAof each specific species of
(10:45):
coral dictates how it is shaped,how it is formed, how it grows,
things like that. So yeah, ifyou zoom in and look really
close at the skin, or theskeleton of a coral, it looks
like a bunch of tiny little seaanemones in a row. And so that's
what the little polyps looklike. They're like little sea
(11:06):
anemones, with tentaclessticking out of the skeleton,
they have a little mouth thatthey can, you know, eat
occasionally some food filteringby.
And so it's a bunch of smalllittle animals living together.
What like jellies or Nid.Aryans, what are corals there?
And you're also in a very Yeah,that's pretty cool. I did not
(11:26):
know that.
How do they build theirskeletons? have so many
questions about corals? Yeah, sotheir skeletons are made of
calcium carbonate. And so theybasically are just constantly
producing that when a new polypis budding off to kind of
continue growing a branch orspreading across a rock. They
(11:48):
are just kind of building thatskeleton as they go. And it kind
of just becomes part of theirorganism. And that's the same as
like snail shells, right? Yes, Ithink. Yeah, so we are spider
crabs. We supplement their filmswith calcium so they can build
their shells. Same thing withour corals. We supplement
(12:10):
calcium so that they can buildthose shells as well. And so
that's why they're verysensitive to ocean acidification
buzz word. Because
they the calcium skeletons areeasily dissolved by acidity. So
they're very sensitive. I'm verysensitive to
(12:32):
um, is there coral in almostevery ocean or every region of
the world. What about deep sea?Coral? Coral? Yeah, yeah. Tell
us a little bit about Yeah, sonot all corals are
photosynthetic. There are somethat don't do photosynthesis.
They just are filter feederslike a sea anemone or a sea
(12:52):
jelly would be. So yeah, we havecorals here, right off our
coast. There's some on theChannel Islands. We actually
have one of our new exhibits inthe Southern California gallery
highlights some of those they'recalled hydro corals. And they
look kind of like a sea fan. Butthey're kind of hard because
they have that skeleton. Soyeah, corals are very
(13:15):
fascinating taxa because theyare so diverse. Pretty much
found worldwide. occupies somany different niches, niches.
Wow, I haven't said that wordout loud. A long time.
Yeah, niche.
The Golden niche. Tell us do nottell no one tell us how to
(13:37):
pronounce Yeah, I want to go tomy grave without I want to say
it differently every time.
That's
French, my chi.
My cheese. Um, so you talked alittle bit about like feeding
our corals and supplementingthem with calcium. What are you
feeding corals? Yeah, so we areconstantly feeding them
(13:59):
plankton, we get frozenplankton, a lot of different
kinds of copepods. You canactually you know, buy at your
local fish store, they're prettyeasy to mass produce and freeze
and ship out. So we have aconstant supply of those that we
just kind of disperse into ourcoral exhibits. They get most of
(14:21):
their energy from thephotosynthesis that the Zoes
Anthalie do but they are gettingsome nutrients from catching
things in the water column thatsays little polyps just grab on
to the Cobra rods and it'sactually interesting because the
more that you feed them on aregular basis the corals will
learn that they should bereaching out those polyps.
Maurice you can actually NepaliYeah, you can train them to have
(14:42):
longer polyps. Yeah, it'samazing. You can really tell
that more like you feel he isright and right, exactly because
of the tentacles reaching out soyou can kind of see them
actually reaching for it. Yeah.And so we try to feed our
exhibits a lot because thecorals look more striking.
There
make something beautiful.
It makes me beautiful to
(15:04):
those opposite for me. Whatwould you say the poster child
is for corals? Ooh, the posterchild? That's a great question.
The I have always thought of thelike thin branching corals. The
poster child, I was thinking,the genus is a cropper. Uh, oh,
it's kind of Yes. Crows, ifyou're familiar with the hobby,
(15:24):
emoji, yes. Yeah.
Non animal.
Media weighing the coral. Isthere an emoji that looks like
it? Otherwise? I don't
know, show me on the phone,which. So yeah, they, you know,
are attached to the rock. Andthen they form these like nice
(15:45):
thin branches, that all justkind of uniformly grow upwards,
which I think are really cool.So a lot of times, if you have
seen coral skeletons onsomeone's shelf at home or in a
museum, that's kind of yourtypical colony, why are corals
important? Yeah, so they are Ilike to compare coral reefs to
(16:08):
like the Amazon rainforest. Socoral reefs are basically a
hotspot for biodiversity in theocean.
I think I read recently, thestat statistic is like coral
reefs make up less than 1% ofthe ocean floor. But they are
home to like 25% of all marinespecies, fish and invertebrates.
(16:33):
So there are so many differentspecies that call coral reefs
home. And just like the Amazonrainforest, wouldn't exist
without the trees being therecreating that structure, coral
reefs would not exist withoutthe corals there, because they
are the things that create thestructure, the habitat, all the
different space for animals tolive nutrients for other animals
(16:55):
to eat different things likethat. So do they make a waste
product? How do they excretewaste? Like after they've eaten?
Yeah, so because of the way thatthe Zambelli is the synbiotic in
their tissues? To
do photosynthesis, just like aplant takes nutrients from soil
(17:17):
Zambelli is taking nutrientsfrom the coral animal to
photosynthesis that's, like selffertilizing, it's a constant
cycle of do they sort of helpwith like eutrophication? Like
do they pull nutrients out ofthe water, not to the same
extent that, like sponges, orclams, or mussels, or things
(17:38):
like that would, but I'm surethere is some element to that
turns out, everything'simportant.
Everything is important. That'spretty great, especially you,
all of you listening are just asimportant as a sponge or a clam.
But that's pretty, I mean,corals really create, like a
(17:59):
home for all of the animals thatso many of the animals that we
have exist in coral reefs, whichis why there's coral and all of
our habitats. Yeah, they arepretty important. And that leads
us to a very sad point thatmaybe corals aren't doing the
best right now. Yes, as wementioned, corals are very
sensitive, just by the nature ofwhere they live, and the role
(18:21):
that they play. They are used tovery stable conditions, the
tropics, you know, are alwayswarm, you know, not a ton of
extreme weather, pretty muchstable conditions all year round
with some minor fluctuations.And so, because of that, corals
are used to kind of the sameconditions the whole time
(18:42):
throughout their lives. So ifanything gets even just a little
bit off balance, they do notlike that. And so because of
current trends with globalwarming, warming, ocean
temperatures, lowering ph of theoceans, a lot of human impacts
on reefs, across the worlds,they obviously are in decline
(19:06):
because of how sensitive theyare. And it's hard to because of
how slowly they grow. It's it'shard for them to easily bounce
back like some other species, orcan you explain a little bit
about the connection between howglobal warming impacts ocean
acidification for people whomight not be familiar? Yeah, so
there is a general increase inthe amount of carbon dioxide in
(19:29):
our atmosphere because of youknow, human production. And so
the ocean as a whole is a bigsink for carbon dioxide, meaning
a lot of the carbon dioxide inthe air gets dissolved into the
ocean. And co2 naturally is anacidic molecule. So dissolving
more co2 into a body of waterwill cause the pH to drop,
(19:53):
meaning it gets a little moreacidic. The pH of the ocean is
usually around 8.3
Up to 8.5. And so it can dropbelow eight.
And that obviously is not greatfor even just a small change
like that can
(20:16):
tear.
So I would love to chat aboutwhat the aquarium is doing on
site to help corals and then offsite dot corals. I know that we
have a program right now wherewe're able to accept a
compensated coral from localairports because we're here in
LA. Can you talk a little bitabout that? Yeah, yeah. So we,
(20:39):
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 comingfrom East Asia, the Indo
Pacific, Australia. And sothere, yes, a lot where a lot of
beautiful corals are. And so,periodically,
(21:01):
we will get a call from US Fishand Wildlife, saying, Hey, we
confiscated X number of corals.Do you guys have space to take
them? And typically, our answeris yes. And so they get these
confiscations through differentreasons. If someone doesn't have
the right permits, if they'retrying to smuggle corals in for
(21:22):
some reason, different differentsituations like that. We don't
really ask too many questions.We just say thank you. And
usually they will drive it downhere and drop it off for us,
which is great. We actually gota confiscation of corals today.
Wow, really? Yeah.
Bags. Yeah. So just in littlebags of water, it can really
(21:45):
vary the condition that theycome in. Sometimes they've been
sitting in those bags for a longtime. So the water is like very
murky. Corals are super unhappy.But typically, they arrive in
pretty good condition. And wecan actually use them in our
exhibits, which is greatsuccessful. Yeah. Do you
(22:06):
quarantine them the same way wedo with other animals? Yeah, so
we all have any new coral that'scoming in. Even if we're getting
it from a different aquarium,where we know it has done well,
we will keep it behind thescenes kind of ideally in its
own separate area. But sometimeswe don't quite have the space
for that. But we'll keep areally close eye on it. We'll do
(22:26):
a few different treatments, justto make sure that it has no
external parasites or bacterialinfections or anything like
that. And we'll make sure thatit is happy behind the scenes
before we transfer it to anexhibit. I guess part of the
reason I asked is we talked alot about introduce species and
introduce diseases and so mebeing a frog person, like I
(22:48):
always think about when youimport frogs, chytrid is a huge
risk for them. And there areother diseases. Are there any
sort of like typical coraldiseases that you are looking
out for, like you test for thisspecific thing? Yeah, so spotted
the second you look at them,right? So we actually because I
mean, it's something we'realways looking for as coral
Aquarius here because for ourvery established coral exhibits,
(23:13):
it is very easy for parasites toget introduced into a big coral
exhibit, it is very, verydifficult to get to eradicate
them. So we have to be extraextra careful because it becomes
so much work for us if we getsome sort of infestation. So
some of the big things that welook for are there's small
(23:35):
little invertebrates that canlive on coral tissue and slowly
eat away at it. There's twodifferent things Yeah,
extremely.
The big one is nudibranchs theyalmost look like you can see
them with the naked eye ifthey're big enough, but they are
like fuzzy and white. They looklike almost like little sheep.
(23:57):
Is it a specific new to bring toeach coral? Yes. Yeah. Usually
affects zones right?
Well, we the the one that we geta lot here is Montipora eating
nudibranchs which is a specificspecies of stony coral. And so
they will usually they will likehide underneath the coral. And
(24:19):
then at night will like Come outand eat the coral and they will
like lay their eggs underneathit's a whole thing.
Then one of the other big onesthat we get could not tell you
off the top of my head exactlywhat kind of animal they are,
but we just call them red bugs.
They are tiny little red dotsand they their main prey is
(24:41):
acros Acropora, which is our
coral yet and so we have hadissues with those in the past.
So those are the two big onesthat we look for. And then also
just bacterial infection is abig one that can spread easily.
And so that's just looking atjust the general tissue of the
(25:03):
coral. If you know if some of itis like, slimy or sloughing off
or turning white on one side,that's easier for us to spot.
And those are calledhitchhikers, right? Yes, yes.
hitchhikers that we don't like,unfortunately
for coming on corals, or is thatsomething more so just live
rock? Yeah, it's more so thelive rock because ectasia for
(25:24):
those of you that aren'tfamiliar are small little
anemones, that are basicallylike a weed in your garden, they
will grow like crazy on any sortof rock inside of an aquarium.
And they are very, very hard toget rid of. Because if you try
to scrape them off or suck themup, they will just say, Oh my
God, I need to spawn and they'llcreate like 100 more. Oh, no, I
(25:47):
need to Hunter more. I need torepopulate the world. Honestly,
it's a really good evolutionary
very nominal, learn that yeah,not ideal for 100 Scots.
I'd still be so unproductive.
So funny. Why are peoplesmuggling corals? Why are people
(26:09):
obtaining them illegally andtrying to bring them to the
airport? Yeah. So there is avery large industry of hobby
aquarists people that have coralreef tanks at home, which is
great. Obviously, that'sexciting. We love people
connecting with the ocean likethat, but it has created a huge
market for corals being sold.And so there are you know, legal
(26:33):
markets to sell those corals butyou know, you always have people
trying to skirt skirt things. Doyou see a lot too, or
potentially a lot of people justkind of wanting to souvenir from
their trip and just thinking,Oh, this will look good on my
shelf later. Yeah, yeah.Typically, that's in the form of
coral skeletons that peopletake. I would be shocked if
(26:56):
someone you know, was trying tobring home a live a live coral,
but I'm sure they're people thatare adventurous enough to.
Yeah, problems where people goto local fish stores, and they
try to put corals in with theirgoldfish. Right, right. Yes,
some horror stories. Yeah, yeah,some people will because
goldfish or freshwater corals orsaltwater? Don't do that. Yeah.
(27:18):
Not recommended.
Well, then let's get intoSeacor. Yeah, our external
conservation effort. What is thecore? Yeah, so C Corp is a
nonprofit organization that theaquarium supports, both
financially and with manpower.So, it C Corp itself stands for
(27:40):
Yes.
J power.
C corpse stands for sexualchoral reproduction. So SC is
sexual.
not know that until someone'scalled that
kind of blows people's minds. Sose sexual co choral ar e
reproduction. So they arefocused on
(28:03):
rebuilding coral reefs, andmainly focusing on how to best
have corals reproduce sexually,which we can talk about in a
sec. But they they are trying todevelop specific techniques that
are the most efficient way fornurseries in different island
(28:24):
nations to create new coralsthat can then be out planted
onto an affected reef. And sotheir main focus is coming up
with the best techniques thatcan then be upscaled at a much
bigger scale to have the biggesteffect possible. So they're not
necessarily focused on you know,trying to solve global warming
or trying to solve coral reefsin crisis. They're focusing on
(28:48):
how best to repopulate is CCorp, an organization or a
program. It's an organization,it's, you know, its own company,
they have staff, they havefunding, all this different
stuff. And they primarily sortof do they work to bring experts
together to sort of talk abouthere's the best way we can grow
these corals like is yourcontribution to that partially
(29:11):
manpower, but also yourexpertise from the aquarium?
Yeah, so we will provide inputon
you know, obviously, ourexpertise here at the Aquarium
is keeping corals happy and acontained system. And so that's
not something that you know, alot of coral researchers have a
ton of experience with. So weprovide our input with that. But
(29:34):
C Corp itself, their main focusis partnering with organizations
around the world so they havepartner organizations a lot in
the Caribbean. I think Bonaireis one of their main sites. I
was out in Sipan, and thePacific so these different
island nations that they go to,they kind of partner with a
(29:55):
local organization or a locallab there and
I help them develop their ownpractices, kind of using the C
Corp method in order to makethat a more successful
project.
(30:16):
That's awesome. I don't think Ireally knew a lot about it. You
know, I would always hear like,oh, this, of course, went to C
Corp this year, and I didn'treally understand what it was.
So do you have experience herein breeding corals? Is that
something that you also bring tothe table? Is that something
that? Do they breed them in acontained system? Like I have a
lot of questions. Yeah. Yeah. SoI guess, taking a step back, the
(30:39):
way that corals reproduce, thereare kind of two main methods
being asexual reproduction, andsexual reproduction. So one of
the cool things about coral isthat you can like break off a
branch put it somewhere else,and that branch that has broken
off will continue to grow. Andthe parent colony that you broke
it off from will also continueto grow. So that is an easy way
(31:03):
to take one coral and make abunch of new corals is just a
yes. fragging. fragging shortfor fragmentation.
So we will actually do thatfairly often here at the
Aquarium. You know, if we have acoral that is doing so well in
one exhibit that's kind ofoutgrowing its space, we want to
(31:24):
populate other smaller exhibits,we can break off small pieces,
move them to the other exhibits,they'll continue to grow in a
plant. Exactly, yeah. But thedownside of that in a
restoration sense is that all ofthose fragments that you have
created are still geneticallyexactly the same as the parent
colony. So it is a good methodif you were just trying to
(31:47):
create more coral cover tocreate habitat for more animals,
but from a ecosystem sense. It'snot great, because you want Yes,
diverse genetics. Sotheoretically, though, could it
just grow indefinitely? Yeah.Wow. Yeah. Corals are wild. They
are one let me know is therelike an oldest coral that we
(32:07):
know?
You know, I am sure there issome coral somewhere that is the
oldest coral.
But I that they can live like1000s of years? Yeah, yeah, they
have carbon dated a lot.
But that's how they reproduce.Yes. So they can reproduce
asexually. And then they also dosexual reproduction, which is
(32:32):
where colonies will releasegametes into the water, sperm
and eggs get released into thewater. And they will mix
together and form new coralsthat will then settle and create
genetically distinct corals.Like one little guy will settle
and he'll start, like cloninghimself over and over again.
(32:54):
Yeah, so cute to imagine justlike the one polyp like here's
good, you know, just starting
to so cute. I love him.
made like a whole city. Yeah,just by himself. Yeah, guy.
He's a good guy. It's a reallygood guy. I love that. So they
(33:15):
prioritize sexual reproductionfor coral specifically, because
it increases the diversity isany part of the project,
increasing resilience to oceanacidification or temperature
changes or anything like that.So kind of indirectly, because
they are collecting gametes fromcorals, typically on a reef that
(33:38):
is already kind of at risk ordeclining. The corals that are
still there are probably theones that are the hardiest,
because they have been able tosurvive whatever conditions have
been coming in. And so byreproducing those corals, we
know that they are moreresilient to whatever changes
(34:00):
might be happening at thecurrent time at a given
location. Now, are we bringingback any of the fragment and
corals or the or not thefragment but the corals you're
producing? With C Corp indifferent countries? We back
here we have in the past, wehave not in a few years? Because
I mean, it's mainly just foreducational purposes for us, you
(34:23):
know, it's not easy for us tothen ship it back to them after
a certain point and they canhelp plant it. So it is
something we have done in thepast. But we have not done that
recently. What was your overallexperience like going to Sai pan
and participating in thisproject? How long were you there
and sort of what was it like dayto day? Yeah, so I was there for
(34:45):
two weeks. beginning of July. Iflew out July 4.
America's birthday. Yeah. It wasinteresting because I flew
across the internationaldateline. So I like skipped a
full day so I kind of missedmost
first of July 4, yeah, don'tdon't tell.
(35:08):
But yeah, so sigh pan itself, ifpeople aren't familiar is
actually American soil. It's asmall little island right next
to Guam, it's part of theNorthern Marianas Islands. So
it's very close to the MarianasTrench.
It's like a three hour flightfrom Eastern Asia.
So it's culturally a veryinteresting place because it is
(35:32):
American soil. So signs are inEnglish. You know, most people
speak English there, there is anAmerican presence. But
historically, you know,obviously, there was a native
population that has lived thereit at one point was Japanese
territory, it was German, at onepoint, it was Spanish way back
when. And so it's kind of thisinteresting hodgepodge of
(35:56):
cultures that make it kind of avery distinct place. It's very
interesting. And then good food,so much good food. Because of
that, you know, all thesedifferent cultures have
contributed. But it was also avery important site and World
War, believe it was World WarTwo. And so because of that,
(36:17):
there's a lot of memorials andwar relics, there's like tanks
that are just out in the lagoonthat have rusted because no one
has cleaned that up.
And
it's, it's got a fascinatinghistory. But it's a very cool
little place. It's a smallisland. It's, like 12 miles long
(36:40):
and five miles wide. So not, notsuper big. But we were
partnering with C Corp ispartnering with a local
organization. They're calledjams, Johnston, applied marine
science teams.
And it's led by a scientist LizaJohnston, who is from the US,
(37:03):
she's from Florida. And she hassince moved out to Taipan and
started this organization tofocus on coral reef restoration,
which is super cool. And so CCorp, got a grant with her to
partner and kind of develop hertechniques out there.
And so we were working with her.And so my role, there was
(37:26):
basically just manpower, I was adive buddy, whenever they needed
to go to do something, if thatwas looking at the coral nursery
scrubbing tiles, making surethings were hunky dory out
there. And then also helpingwith the spawning dives, where
we go out at night, after thefull moon and collect the
(37:47):
gametes, from nectar to the fullmoon. This bond with the moon
Yes, so I rose i because
so the way that corals willspawn is the different species
(38:08):
will all spawn at the same time.So like all individuals, in
theory of one species will spawnat once, okay, and then a little
bit later, a different specieswill go off. And so these
researchers that live there yearround, know, the reefs know, the
corals, they knew pretty muchexactly how many days after the
(38:29):
full moon, they were going tospawn, and like how many minutes
after sunset based on cellspecific? Yeah. And so she had a
schedule, and she's like, Okay,we need to be out there by 715.
Because by 730, they're gonna begoing off, and then at 745, the
other species is gonna go off.Yeah.
And so it's so you have to seewhat plans these trips around
(38:52):
exactly the cycle, which is whyhappened to be on July 4,
because the full moon I think,was on July 5, that's when the
moon is flashing is that I thinkit's really cool to you know,
when you think about theseprojects, how important local
ecological knowledge is, andsometimes even like, traditional
ecological knowledge is soimportant to just understand
(39:13):
what's happening in theenvironment. And you can't know
those specific things unlessyou've been there observing,
right? Exactly. And it's crazyto me that someone's like, Hey,
it's 747 there's gonna be a hugesponsor literally.
Cool. And it was interesting,too, because there were local
dive groups not associated withus at all that were also coming
(39:34):
out at certain times at nightbecause they just wanted to
watch the coral spawn just fromlike a tourism spectating
perspective. So there's a verybig like, local cultural
connection to the reefs, whichis, yeah, what does it look
like? Yeah, so I they have shownit a bunch on planet earth a few
times, but it turns out I get towatch.
(39:55):
Very good dramatic music. Yeah,I'm sure it makes your heart
like sweet Yeah.
Like, wow, it was very coolactually seeing it in person.
But it's, if you can imagine allof the little polyps on a coral
head, each one of those polypsis going to produce a gamete
bundle. So they will kind ofpackage sperm and eggs in one
(40:18):
little bundle, and then it willjust kind of pop out of the
polyp. But all of the polypswill release it at the exact
same time. And so it's kind ofdepends on the species, but it's
kind of like the size of like ahead of a pencil or a head.
So it is visible. Yeah, thereare small little specks, but you
(40:39):
know what is happening and theyfloat. So they all just kind of
get released at the same time.
Do they like meet at the surfaceand then sink and settle. So
they float up to the surface.And then the waves action is
what causes them to kind ofbreak apart the bundles, and
then everything kind of mixestogether from different
colonies. And then the I mean,that's fertilization happening.
(41:02):
So as soon as that happens, theystart growing. And then after,
you know, 24 or 48 hours,they'll start to sink down and
find a good spot to settle. Allthose little guys. Hope that's
so cool. What about here at theAquarium have you do our coral
spawn? So we have corals thatwill spawn here? It is not
(41:22):
purposeful on our part, youknow, we're not trying to make
them spawn moon here.
It's I mean, we have differentlight cycles. So I think some of
them are keyed in on that. Ithink sometimes they it's just
been a while and so they justkind of need to release it. I
know. Yeah, we will come in andthey will be you know, exit the
(41:44):
surface, or sometimes we willeven see some like, right, as
the lights are turning on firstthing in the morning, we can
still see coral spawning. But wehave never tried to, at least in
recent years since I've beenhere, we have never tried to
like get those gametes and tryand settle just because it's
such a work intensive process.Yeah. Well, thank you for
(42:09):
sharing so much. What C Corp waslike, that's cool. I didn't know
very much about what the projectwas. And it's really cool to see
the aquarium having an impactsort of globally. Also, you
know, knowing that you went outto Saipan and you help sort of
spawn these corals and like workon restoration work is so pretty
awesome. Our last couplequestions are our social media
(42:30):
questions that we did touch onwhy corals are important. But
one of the people actually askedHow successful has coral
restoration been so far? That'sa great question that I don't
have, you know, obvious hardcorestatistics on. But I think there
are more and more organizationspopping up working on coral
(42:51):
restoration. And a lot of it isusually pretty site specific. A
lot of local governments arecreating organizations that will
focus on restoration in aspecific area or creating
funding for organizations to besuccessful. And so it it
definitely has helped, you know,it's obviously not hurting, and
(43:13):
especially just from like acultural impact in those
specific communities on smallislands. creating that
connection with the localcommunity and the coral reefs is
super important. So even justthat is a big one educating
Right, exactly, and what theproblems are. I think that
helps, too. Speaking of anothersocial media question is how can
(43:38):
I help with coral restoration? Imean,
yeah.
But how can this person help andwhat can they do besides just
kind of learning about it,spreading the word and donating
to the cause? Like, is thereanything sort of focused that an
individual can do to help? Yeah,I unfortunately, it's kind of
the same answer that I'm surethey've heard before, you know,
(44:00):
because global warming is themain factor for coral reef.
degradation, you know, reducingyour carbon footprint carpooling
to work riding your bicycle.
I have one Yeah, coral safesunscreen. That's a yes, that is
a thing. That's a good one. Whatis in sunscreen that's killing
(44:22):
coral.
Hi, I'm Erin Lundy.
And I'm Madeline Walden and thisis Aquarium of the Podcific, a
podcast brought to you byAquarium of the Podcific.
Southern California's largest aquarium.
Join us as we learned alongsidethe experts in animal care,
conservation and more.
Welcome back to Aquarium of thePodcific. I'm Erin Lundy,
conservation coordinator formammals and birds.
(00:27):
And I'm Madeline Walden, theQuarians digital content and
community manager. I was socaught up in your introduction
that I got nervous, you'refocusing on this, what are we
gonna talk about today? Todaywe're talking about a very
interesting plant. Questionmark. And the question marks
question mark. That was enough.But morals, which are one of the
probably sort of lesshighlighted animals at the
(00:48):
aquarium because people don'toften know that they are, in
fact, animals, and they areliving beings and they are
structures that are verymeticulously cared for by our
Aquarius, which I'm very excitedto learn about me to they're so
beautiful if you visit theaquarium 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
(01:10):
here since we opened in 1998. Soa lot of our corals are charter
animals, technically, that'scrazy to think about. Some of
the corals that we have here arealso corals that have been
confiscated for one reason oranother. And so because they are
animals, they then need a homeand the aquarium is happy to
provide a sort of refuge forthose confiscated animals and
allow them to really grow anddevelop here. I see our Aquarius
(01:32):
sometimes diving for hours, justkind of like picking out little
things of sand from our coraland really cleaning them up. And
it seems like the most tediousand meticulous process but also
so meditative to be like, underthe sun. Yeah, it seems so yeah,
I'm very jealous, I have no ideahow to take care of coral. But
thankfully, we're gonna betalking to Jay Harvey today who
is a corals expert, and not onlyhas taken care of coral here at
(01:55):
the Aquarium, but has also takencare of coral. Internationally,
we're gonna get into his workwith the C Corp program and what
that is exactly, so stay tunedfor that. I'm excited about this
one, it's gonna be really,really educational. Cool. Well,
without further ado, let's getinto it and learn a little bit
about coral.
Hi Jay, thank you so much forbeing on the podcast today. We
(02:18):
appreciate it. Hi, thank you forhaving me. I'm excited. So we
are going to talk about corals,and specifically corals here at
the Aquarium and then the C Corpproject. So we'll ask what that
is in a little bit. But tell usa little bit about you at the
aquarium. What's your job here?What do you do? What do you take
(02:39):
care of? Yeah, so I am anaquarist here at the Aquarium at
the Pacific. So that means Itake care of fish and
invertebrates. And I work in ourtropical Pacific gallery. So I
work with mainly warm waterthings that live in and around
coral reefs or in the tropics ofthe Pacific Ocean. So I work
with kind of a large array ofspecies, seahorses. A lot of big
(03:01):
fish smell fish, cuddle fish,shrimp fish, lots of cool fish.
Yeah, One Fish, Two Fish, many.
And then obviously, it worked alot with corals. So if you have
explored our tropical gallery,you may have noticed that pretty
much all of our exhibits in mygallery have some form of coral
in them. And so we kind of usethat to kind of decorate our
(03:26):
exhibits. It's kind of the focusof some exhibits. So it's a big
part of our jobs making coralshappy here. Are they all live
corals? Good question. So thereare some exhibits some of our
bigger exhibits that have fakecoral in them. So our big
tropical reef exhibit has fakecoral. And then there is one
(03:47):
exhibit just through the tunnel.That is also fake coral. What's
the advantage of using some ofthose artificial corals over
real ones? Or why might we dothat? Yeah. So corals themselves
are very sensitive. They're verytricky to keep happy and alive.
Yeah, identify with them.
(04:07):
So it can take a lot of work tokeep them alive. And especially
in a really big exhibit liketropical reef, it would take a
lot, a lot of work. So it's justless work on our end to have
fake corals in there. Yeah, ifyou visit the aquarium and you
explore a tropical Pacificgallery, you'll notice that a
lot of the corals we have inthere are really big. And some
(04:28):
of them I think are evenchartered animals, right? Corals
are animals. Yes, they are. Aplant. Yeah. And that's it.
And they're also food for someof the fish, right? Yes. So we
actually have a exhibit. That'sthe one I was mentioning through
the tunnel. That's called ourcoral predators exhibit. So most
(04:50):
of the animals in there arespecies that will actually eat
coral.
Yes, one of them being ourfavorite big parrot fish. His
name is Michael Michael.
A
common misconception
is fish Michael and humanMichael human Michael Michael.
don't mean like twisted Exactly.
(05:13):
But yeah, so we have a pair offish in their pair of fish like
to eat coral. They have big,nice teeth that jump through the
coral skeletons. And theyactually eat the skeleton, their
body can actually process it andbreak it down and so they poop
out sand. So in that exhibit, weare constantly sucking out. fish
(05:33):
poop. Do you? Like extra sand inthat exhibit like this? That's a
weird.
Constantly, like produce morething? Oh, yeah, that's crazy.
If you work like if you'restanding in front of the exhibit
on the front left, that's wherehis poop sand accumulate. He has
a toilet area. He's responsible.I feel like I think we might
(05:53):
have to do like an episode.That's Michael Michael. Michael
again.
The distinction is veryimportant. All human Michael
fish. Michael has a litter boxcorner. Yeah, it's all seen.
That's amazing. That's amazing.I think I think we will do a
podcast episode all about coralpredators, specifically because
it's such a interesting to sayfish, Michael about fish,
(06:13):
Michael. I mean, they'll be inYeah.
I heard a rumor when I wasliving in Hawaii that all of
those beautiful white sandybeaches in Hawaii are a result
of parrot fish poop. Yep.You're, if you're ever on a
beautiful tropical vacation inHawaii, just know that you are
enjoying a lot of ferret fishpoop over the years. But it is
(06:35):
beautiful. And it makes forthose beautiful white sandy
beaches, because that is allthose coral skeletons that have
been processed. Exactly. Yeah.And I don't remember the exact
number. But there's a crazy statabout how much sand a single
pair of fish produces a year.It's wild. I think we should
measure my
good.
That's a good study. We shouldand then we can tell them the
(06:55):
gift shop? Oh,
absolutely.
Michael's most of my heart.
That's amazing. So
with all that being said, whatis your favorite part of what
you do? That is a greatquestion. Honestly, my favorite
(07:17):
part of what I do is watchingguests enjoy my exhibits.
Because obviously so much timeand effort goes into taking care
of our exhibits on a dailybasis, especially our coral
exhibits. And so when I actuallyget to spend time in front of
our exhibits and watch guests,specifically on children, you
(07:39):
know, connect with coral connectwith the animals that I care
about, such as fish, Michael,
get excited about the thingsthat I myself I'm so excited
about it's it makes all of thathard work very worth it. So
that's incredible. That'sawesome. Okay, let's get into
what is a coral? What is it?Yeah.
(08:00):
What is it? Yeah, so as youstated before, it is an animal.
A lot of people don't know thator have heard that and can't
really connect with that whenthey're looking at it in an
exhibit. So that's one of themain things we try and hammer
home in our signage and in ourexhibits is that these are live
animals that have needs justlike you and I do. And so they
(08:21):
are actually quite complexorganisms, even though if you're
just looking at them, they mightjust look like a pretty rock
that's just sitting there. Sothey are animals. Some of their
closest relatives are thingslike sea jellies and sea
anemones. And so they're kind ofrelated to those animals, they
have a symbiotic that liveswithin their tissues called Zoho
(08:45):
Zambelli really fun word toimpress your friends with. So
everybody said.
And so that is what gives themtheir pretty colors. It's a
unicellular organism that liveswithin their tissues that does
photosynthesis. So animals don'tdo photosynthesis. They do
(09:09):
cellular respiration like youand I do. But things like plants
do photosynthesis, obviously,meaning they get their energy
from the sun turn that energyinto nutrients that they use to
power their cells. So the coralAmazo is Anthalie live in
harmony together and are able tosurvive in a part of the ocean
(09:35):
that is relatively nutrientpoor. So the Zambelli is what
allows the coral to be happy inthe ocean. So if I was a coral,
this is like if I had a littleplant living in me that
photosynthesize and made energyfor me, right? That's cool.
That's pretty cool. Yeah, so youwouldn't really have to eat at
all.
(10:01):
So, I have a question. Arecorals like a colony of animals?
Or are they one individualorganism? Or is it sort of like
how cells make up our body tomake one animal? Like, what kind
of is the deal? What are welooking at? What are we looking
at. So when you're looking at,you know, your classic coral,
kind of a big, maybe a few feetacross attached to a rock, that
(10:22):
is actually a colony ofindividual polyps is what the
individual unit is called acoral polyp. And the polyp is
the like unit of the organism.And then each pilot is polyp is
a clone of itself. So it's acolony of clones that all kind
of live together. And in the DNAof each specific species of
(10:45):
coral dictates how it is shaped,how it is formed, how it grows,
things like that. So yeah, ifyou zoom in and look really
close at the skin, or theskeleton of a coral, it looks
like a bunch of tiny little seaanemones in a row. And so that's
what the little polyps looklike. They're like little sea
(11:06):
anemones, with tentaclessticking out of the skeleton,
they have a little mouth thatthey can, you know, eat
occasionally some food filteringby.
And so it's a bunch of smalllittle animals living together.
What like jellies or Nid.Aryans, what are corals there?
And you're also in a very Yeah,that's pretty cool. I did not
(11:26):
know that.
How do they build theirskeletons? have so many
questions about corals? Yeah, sotheir skeletons are made of
calcium carbonate. And so theybasically are just constantly
producing that when a new polypis budding off to kind of
continue growing a branch orspreading across a rock. They
(11:48):
are just kind of building thatskeleton as they go. And it kind
of just becomes part of theirorganism. And that's the same as
like snail shells, right? Yes, Ithink. Yeah, so we are spider
crabs. We supplement their filmswith calcium so they can build
their shells. Same thing withour corals. We supplement
(12:10):
calcium so that they can buildthose shells as well. And so
that's why they're verysensitive to ocean acidification
buzz word. Because
they the calcium skeletons areeasily dissolved by acidity. So
they're very sensitive. I'm verysensitive to
(12:32):
um, is there coral in almostevery ocean or every region of
the world. What about deep sea?Coral? Coral? Yeah, yeah. Tell
us a little bit about Yeah, sonot all corals are
photosynthetic. There are somethat don't do photosynthesis.
They just are filter feederslike a sea anemone or a sea
(12:52):
jelly would be. So yeah, we havecorals here, right off our
coast. There's some on theChannel Islands. We actually
have one of our new exhibits inthe Southern California gallery
highlights some of those they'recalled hydro corals. And they
look kind of like a sea fan. Butthey're kind of hard because
they have that skeleton. Soyeah, corals are very
(13:15):
fascinating taxa because theyare so diverse. Pretty much
found worldwide. occupies somany different niches, niches.
Wow, I haven't said that wordout loud. A long time.
Yeah, niche.
The Golden niche. Tell us do nottell no one tell us how to
(13:37):
pronounce Yeah, I want to go tomy grave without I want to say
it differently every time.
That's
French, my chi.
My cheese. Um, so you talked alittle bit about like feeding
our corals and supplementingthem with calcium. What are you
feeding corals? Yeah, so we areconstantly feeding them
(13:59):
plankton, we get frozenplankton, a lot of different
kinds of copepods. You canactually you know, buy at your
local fish store, they're prettyeasy to mass produce and freeze
and ship out. So we have aconstant supply of those that we
just kind of disperse into ourcoral exhibits. They get most of
(14:21):
their energy from thephotosynthesis that the Zoes
Anthalie do but they are gettingsome nutrients from catching
things in the water column thatsays little polyps just grab on
to the Cobra rods and it'sactually interesting because the
more that you feed them on aregular basis the corals will
learn that they should bereaching out those polyps.
Maurice you can actually NepaliYeah, you can train them to have
(14:42):
longer polyps. Yeah, it'samazing. You can really tell
that more like you feel he isright and right, exactly because
of the tentacles reaching out soyou can kind of see them
actually reaching for it. Yeah.And so we try to feed our
exhibits a lot because thecorals look more striking.
There
make something beautiful.
It makes me beautiful to
(15:04):
those opposite for me. Whatwould you say the poster child
is for corals? Ooh, the posterchild? That's a great question.
The I have always thought of thelike thin branching corals. The
poster child, I was thinking,the genus is a cropper. Uh, oh,
it's kind of Yes. Crows, ifyou're familiar with the hobby,
(15:24):
emoji, yes. Yeah.
Non animal.
Media weighing the coral. Isthere an emoji that looks like
it? Otherwise? I don't
know, show me on the phone,which. So yeah, they, you know,
are attached to the rock. Andthen they form these like nice
(15:45):
thin branches, that all justkind of uniformly grow upwards,
which I think are really cool.So a lot of times, if you have
seen coral skeletons onsomeone's shelf at home or in a
museum, that's kind of yourtypical colony, why are corals
important? Yeah, so they are Ilike to compare coral reefs to
(16:08):
like the Amazon rainforest. Socoral reefs are basically a
hotspot for biodiversity in theocean.
I think I read recently, thestat statistic is like coral
reefs make up less than 1% ofthe ocean floor. But they are
home to like 25% of all marinespecies, fish and invertebrates.
(16:33):
So there are so many differentspecies that call coral reefs
home. And just like the Amazonrainforest, wouldn't exist
without the trees being therecreating that structure, coral
reefs would not exist withoutthe corals there, because they
are the things that create thestructure, the habitat, all the
different space for animals tolive nutrients for other animals
(16:55):
to eat different things likethat. So do they make a waste
product? How do they excretewaste? Like after they've eaten?
Yeah, so because of the way thatthe Zambelli is the synbiotic in
their tissues? To
do photosynthesis, just like aplant takes nutrients from soil
(17:17):
Zambelli is taking nutrientsfrom the coral animal to
photosynthesis that's, like selffertilizing, it's a constant
cycle of do they sort of helpwith like eutrophication? Like
do they pull nutrients out ofthe water, not to the same
extent that, like sponges, orclams, or mussels, or things
(17:38):
like that would, but I'm surethere is some element to that
turns out, everything'simportant.
Everything is important. That'spretty great, especially you,
all of you listening are just asimportant as a sponge or a clam.
But that's pretty, I mean,corals really create, like a
(17:59):
home for all of the animals thatso many of the animals that we
have exist in coral reefs, whichis why there's coral and all of
our habitats. Yeah, they arepretty important. And that leads
us to a very sad point thatmaybe corals aren't doing the
best right now. Yes, as wementioned, corals are very
sensitive, just by the nature ofwhere they live, and the role
(18:21):
that they play. They are used tovery stable conditions, the
tropics, you know, are alwayswarm, you know, not a ton of
extreme weather, pretty muchstable conditions all year round
with some minor fluctuations.And so, because of that, corals
are used to kind of the sameconditions the whole time
(18:42):
throughout their lives. So ifanything gets even just a little
bit off balance, they do notlike that. And so because of
current trends with globalwarming, warming, ocean
temperatures, lowering ph of theoceans, a lot of human impacts
on reefs, across the worlds,they obviously are in decline
(19:06):
because of how sensitive theyare. And it's hard to because of
how slowly they grow. It's it'shard for them to easily bounce
back like some other species, orcan you explain a little bit
about the connection between howglobal warming impacts ocean
acidification for people whomight not be familiar? Yeah, so
there is a general increase inthe amount of carbon dioxide in
(19:29):
our atmosphere because of youknow, human production. And so
the ocean as a whole is a bigsink for carbon dioxide, meaning
a lot of the carbon dioxide inthe air gets dissolved into the
ocean. And co2 naturally is anacidic molecule. So dissolving
more co2 into a body of waterwill cause the pH to drop,
(19:53):
meaning it gets a little moreacidic. The pH of the ocean is
usually around 8.3
Up to 8.5. And so it can dropbelow eight.
And that obviously is not greatfor even just a small change
like that can
(20:16):
tear.
So I would love to chat aboutwhat the aquarium is doing on
site to help corals and then offsite dot corals. I know that we
have a program right now wherewe're able to accept a
compensated coral from localairports because we're here in
LA. Can you talk a little bitabout that? Yeah, yeah. So we,
(20:39):
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 comingfrom East Asia, the Indo
Pacific, Australia. And sothere, yes, a lot where a lot of
beautiful corals are. And so,periodically,
(21:01):
we will get a call from US Fishand Wildlife, saying, Hey, we
confiscated X number of corals.Do you guys have space to take
them? And typically, our answeris yes. And so they get these
confiscations through differentreasons. If someone doesn't have
the right permits, if they'retrying to smuggle corals in for
(21:22):
some reason, different differentsituations like that. We don't
really ask too many questions.We just say thank you. And
usually they will drive it downhere and drop it off for us,
which is great. We actually gota confiscation of corals today.
Wow, really? Yeah.
Bags. Yeah. So just in littlebags of water, it can really
(21:45):
vary the condition that theycome in. Sometimes they've been
sitting in those bags for a longtime. So the water is like very
murky. Corals are super unhappy.But typically, they arrive in
pretty good condition. And wecan actually use them in our
exhibits, which is greatsuccessful. Yeah. Do you
(22:06):
quarantine them the same way wedo with other animals? Yeah, so
we all have any new coral that'scoming in. Even if we're getting
it from a different aquarium,where we know it has done well,
we will keep it behind thescenes kind of ideally in its
own separate area. But sometimeswe don't quite have the space
for that. But we'll keep areally close eye on it. We'll do
(22:26):
a few different treatments, justto make sure that it has no
external parasites or bacterialinfections or anything like
that. And we'll make sure thatit is happy behind the scenes
before we transfer it to anexhibit. I guess part of the
reason I asked is we talked alot about introduce species and
introduce diseases and so mebeing a frog person, like I
(22:48):
always think about when youimport frogs, chytrid is a huge
risk for them. And there areother diseases. Are there any
sort of like typical coraldiseases that you are looking
out for, like you test for thisspecific thing? Yeah, so spotted
the second you look at them,right? So we actually because I
mean, it's something we'realways looking for as coral
Aquarius here because for ourvery established coral exhibits,
(23:13):
it is very easy for parasites toget introduced into a big coral
exhibit, it is very, verydifficult to get to eradicate
them. So we have to be extraextra careful because it becomes
so much work for us if we getsome sort of infestation. So
some of the big things that welook for are there's small
(23:35):
little invertebrates that canlive on coral tissue and slowly
eat away at it. There's twodifferent things Yeah,
extremely.
The big one is nudibranchs theyalmost look like you can see
them with the naked eye ifthey're big enough, but they are
like fuzzy and white. They looklike almost like little sheep.
(23:57):
Is it a specific new to bring toeach coral? Yes. Yeah. Usually
affects zones right?
Well, we the the one that we geta lot here is Montipora eating
nudibranchs which is a specificspecies of stony coral. And so
they will usually they will likehide underneath the coral. And
(24:19):
then at night will like Come outand eat the coral and they will
like lay their eggs underneathit's a whole thing.
Then one of the other big onesthat we get could not tell you
off the top of my head exactlywhat kind of animal they are,
but we just call them red bugs.
They are tiny little red dotsand they their main prey is
(24:41):
acros Acropora, which is our
coral yet and so we have hadissues with those in the past.
So those are the two big onesthat we look for. And then also
just bacterial infection is abig one that can spread easily.
And so that's just looking atjust the general tissue of the
(25:03):
coral. If you know if some of itis like, slimy or sloughing off
or turning white on one side,that's easier for us to spot.
And those are calledhitchhikers, right? Yes, yes.
hitchhikers that we don't like,unfortunately
for coming on corals, or is thatsomething more so just live
rock? Yeah, it's more so thelive rock because ectasia for
(25:24):
those of you that aren'tfamiliar are small little
anemones, that are basicallylike a weed in your garden, they
will grow like crazy on any sortof rock inside of an aquarium.
And they are very, very hard toget rid of. Because if you try
to scrape them off or suck themup, they will just say, Oh my
God, I need to spawn and they'llcreate like 100 more. Oh, no, I
(25:47):
need to Hunter more. I need torepopulate the world. Honestly,
it's a really good evolutionary
very nominal, learn that yeah,not ideal for 100 Scots.
I'd still be so unproductive.
So funny. Why are peoplesmuggling corals? Why are people
(26:09):
obtaining them illegally andtrying to bring them to the
airport? Yeah. So there is avery large industry of hobby
aquarists people that have coralreef tanks at home, which is
great. Obviously, that'sexciting. We love people
connecting with the ocean likethat, but it has created a huge
market for corals being sold.And so there are you know, legal
(26:33):
markets to sell those corals butyou know, you always have people
trying to skirt skirt things. Doyou see a lot too, or
potentially a lot of people justkind of wanting to souvenir from
their trip and just thinking,Oh, this will look good on my
shelf later. Yeah, yeah.Typically, that's in the form of
coral skeletons that peopletake. I would be shocked if
(26:56):
someone you know, was trying tobring home a live a live coral,
but I'm sure they're people thatare adventurous enough to.
Yeah, problems where people goto local fish stores, and they
try to put corals in with theirgoldfish. Right, right. Yes,
some horror stories. Yeah, yeah,some people will because
goldfish or freshwater corals orsaltwater? Don't do that. Yeah.
(27:18):
Not recommended.
Well, then let's get intoSeacor. Yeah, our external
conservation effort. What is thecore? Yeah, so C Corp is a
nonprofit organization that theaquarium supports, both
financially and with manpower.So, it C Corp itself stands for
(27:40):
Yes.
J power.
C corpse stands for sexualchoral reproduction. So SC is
sexual.
not know that until someone'scalled that
kind of blows people's minds. Sose sexual co choral ar e
reproduction. So they arefocused on
(28:03):
rebuilding coral reefs, andmainly focusing on how to best
have corals reproduce sexually,which we can talk about in a
sec. But they they are trying todevelop specific techniques that
are the most efficient way fornurseries in different island
(28:24):
nations to create new coralsthat can then be out planted
onto an affected reef. And sotheir main focus is coming up
with the best techniques thatcan then be upscaled at a much
bigger scale to have the biggesteffect possible. So they're not
necessarily focused on you know,trying to solve global warming
or trying to solve coral reefsin crisis. They're focusing on
(28:48):
how best to repopulate is CCorp, an organization or a
program. It's an organization,it's, you know, its own company,
they have staff, they havefunding, all this different
stuff. And they primarily sortof do they work to bring experts
together to sort of talk abouthere's the best way we can grow
these corals like is yourcontribution to that partially
(29:11):
manpower, but also yourexpertise from the aquarium?
Yeah, so we will provide inputon
you know, obviously, ourexpertise here at the Aquarium
is keeping corals happy and acontained system. And so that's
not something that you know, alot of coral researchers have a
ton of experience with. So weprovide our input with that. But
(29:34):
C Corp itself, their main focusis partnering with organizations
around the world so they havepartner organizations a lot in
the Caribbean. I think Bonaireis one of their main sites. I
was out in Sipan, and thePacific so these different
island nations that they go to,they kind of partner with a
(29:55):
local organization or a locallab there and
I help them develop their ownpractices, kind of using the C
Corp method in order to makethat a more successful
project.
(30:16):
That's awesome. I don't think Ireally knew a lot about it. You
know, I would always hear like,oh, this, of course, went to C
Corp this year, and I didn'treally understand what it was.
So do you have experience herein breeding corals? Is that
something that you also bring tothe table? Is that something
that? Do they breed them in acontained system? Like I have a
lot of questions. Yeah. Yeah. SoI guess, taking a step back, the
(30:39):
way that corals reproduce, thereare kind of two main methods
being asexual reproduction, andsexual reproduction. So one of
the cool things about coral isthat you can like break off a
branch put it somewhere else,and that branch that has broken
off will continue to grow. Andthe parent colony that you broke
it off from will also continueto grow. So that is an easy way
(31:03):
to take one coral and make abunch of new corals is just a
yes. fragging. fragging shortfor fragmentation.
So we will actually do thatfairly often here at the
Aquarium. You know, if we have acoral that is doing so well in
one exhibit that's kind ofoutgrowing its space, we want to
(31:24):
populate other smaller exhibits,we can break off small pieces,
move them to the other exhibits,they'll continue to grow in a
plant. Exactly, yeah. But thedownside of that in a
restoration sense is that all ofthose fragments that you have
created are still geneticallyexactly the same as the parent
colony. So it is a good methodif you were just trying to
(31:47):
create more coral cover tocreate habitat for more animals,
but from a ecosystem sense. It'snot great, because you want Yes,
diverse genetics. Sotheoretically, though, could it
just grow indefinitely? Yeah.Wow. Yeah. Corals are wild. They
are one let me know is therelike an oldest coral that we
(32:07):
know?
You know, I am sure there issome coral somewhere that is the
oldest coral.
But I that they can live like1000s of years? Yeah, yeah, they
have carbon dated a lot.
But that's how they reproduce.Yes. So they can reproduce
asexually. And then they also dosexual reproduction, which is
(32:32):
where colonies will releasegametes into the water, sperm
and eggs get released into thewater. And they will mix
together and form new coralsthat will then settle and create
genetically distinct corals.Like one little guy will settle
and he'll start, like cloninghimself over and over again.
(32:54):
Yeah, so cute to imagine justlike the one polyp like here's
good, you know, just starting
to so cute. I love him.
made like a whole city. Yeah,just by himself. Yeah, guy.
He's a good guy. It's a reallygood guy. I love that. So they
(33:15):
prioritize sexual reproductionfor coral specifically, because
it increases the diversity isany part of the project,
increasing resilience to oceanacidification or temperature
changes or anything like that.So kind of indirectly, because
they are collecting gametes fromcorals, typically on a reef that
(33:38):
is already kind of at risk ordeclining. The corals that are
still there are probably theones that are the hardiest,
because they have been able tosurvive whatever conditions have
been coming in. And so byreproducing those corals, we
know that they are moreresilient to whatever changes
(34:00):
might be happening at thecurrent time at a given
location. Now, are we bringingback any of the fragment and
corals or the or not thefragment but the corals you're
producing? With C Corp indifferent countries? We back
here we have in the past, wehave not in a few years? Because
I mean, it's mainly just foreducational purposes for us, you
(34:23):
know, it's not easy for us tothen ship it back to them after
a certain point and they canhelp plant it. So it is
something we have done in thepast. But we have not done that
recently. What was your overallexperience like going to Sai pan
and participating in thisproject? How long were you there
and sort of what was it like dayto day? Yeah, so I was there for
(34:45):
two weeks. beginning of July. Iflew out July 4.
America's birthday. Yeah. It wasinteresting because I flew
across the internationaldateline. So I like skipped a
full day so I kind of missedmost
first of July 4, yeah, don'tdon't tell.
(35:08):
But yeah, so sigh pan itself, ifpeople aren't familiar is
actually American soil. It's asmall little island right next
to Guam, it's part of theNorthern Marianas Islands. So
it's very close to the MarianasTrench.
It's like a three hour flightfrom Eastern Asia.
So it's culturally a veryinteresting place because it is
(35:32):
American soil. So signs are inEnglish. You know, most people
speak English there, there is anAmerican presence. But
historically, you know,obviously, there was a native
population that has lived thereit at one point was Japanese
territory, it was German, at onepoint, it was Spanish way back
when. And so it's kind of thisinteresting hodgepodge of
(35:56):
cultures that make it kind of avery distinct place. It's very
interesting. And then good food,so much good food. Because of
that, you know, all thesedifferent cultures have
contributed. But it was also avery important site and World
War, believe it was World WarTwo. And so because of that,
(36:17):
there's a lot of memorials andwar relics, there's like tanks
that are just out in the lagoonthat have rusted because no one
has cleaned that up.
And
it's, it's got a fascinatinghistory. But it's a very cool
little place. It's a smallisland. It's, like 12 miles long
(36:40):
and five miles wide. So not, notsuper big. But we were
partnering with C Corp ispartnering with a local
organization. They're calledjams, Johnston, applied marine
science teams.
And it's led by a scientist LizaJohnston, who is from the US,
(37:03):
she's from Florida. And she hassince moved out to Taipan and
started this organization tofocus on coral reef restoration,
which is super cool. And so CCorp, got a grant with her to
partner and kind of develop hertechniques out there.
And so we were working with her.And so my role, there was
(37:26):
basically just manpower, I was adive buddy, whenever they needed
to go to do something, if thatwas looking at the coral nursery
scrubbing tiles, making surethings were hunky dory out
there. And then also helpingwith the spawning dives, where
we go out at night, after thefull moon and collect the
(37:47):
gametes, from nectar to the fullmoon. This bond with the moon
Yes, so I rose i because
so the way that corals willspawn is the different species
(38:08):
will all spawn at the same time.So like all individuals, in
theory of one species will spawnat once, okay, and then a little
bit later, a different specieswill go off. And so these
researchers that live there yearround, know, the reefs know, the
corals, they knew pretty muchexactly how many days after the
(38:29):
full moon, they were going tospawn, and like how many minutes
after sunset based on cellspecific? Yeah. And so she had a
schedule, and she's like, Okay,we need to be out there by 715.
Because by 730, they're gonna begoing off, and then at 745, the
other species is gonna go off.Yeah.
And so it's so you have to seewhat plans these trips around
(38:52):
exactly the cycle, which is whyhappened to be on July 4,
because the full moon I think,was on July 5, that's when the
moon is flashing is that I thinkit's really cool to you know,
when you think about theseprojects, how important local
ecological knowledge is, andsometimes even like, traditional
ecological knowledge is soimportant to just understand
(39:13):
what's happening in theenvironment. And you can't know
those specific things unlessyou've been there observing,
right? Exactly. And it's crazyto me that someone's like, Hey,
it's 747 there's gonna be a hugesponsor literally.
Cool. And it was interesting,too, because there were local
dive groups not associated withus at all that were also coming
(39:34):
out at certain times at nightbecause they just wanted to
watch the coral spawn just fromlike a tourism spectating
perspective. So there's a verybig like, local cultural
connection to the reefs, whichis, yeah, what does it look
like? Yeah, so I they have shownit a bunch on planet earth a few
times, but it turns out I get towatch.
(39:55):
Very good dramatic music. Yeah,I'm sure it makes your heart
like sweet Yeah.
Like, wow, it was very coolactually seeing it in person.
But it's, if you can imagine allof the little polyps on a coral
head, each one of those polypsis going to produce a gamete
bundle. So they will kind ofpackage sperm and eggs in one
(40:18):
little bundle, and then it willjust kind of pop out of the
polyp. But all of the polypswill release it at the exact
same time. And so it's kind ofdepends on the species, but it's
kind of like the size of like ahead of a pencil or a head.
So it is visible. Yeah, thereare small little specks, but you
(40:39):
know what is happening and theyfloat. So they all just kind of
get released at the same time.
Do they like meet at the surfaceand then sink and settle. So
they float up to the surface.And then the waves action is
what causes them to kind ofbreak apart the bundles, and
then everything kind of mixestogether from different
colonies. And then the I mean,that's fertilization happening.
(41:02):
So as soon as that happens, theystart growing. And then after,
you know, 24 or 48 hours,they'll start to sink down and
find a good spot to settle. Allthose little guys. Hope that's
so cool. What about here at theAquarium have you do our coral
spawn? So we have corals thatwill spawn here? It is not
(41:22):
purposeful on our part, youknow, we're not trying to make
them spawn moon here.
It's I mean, we have differentlight cycles. So I think some of
them are keyed in on that. Ithink sometimes they it's just
been a while and so they justkind of need to release it. I
know. Yeah, we will come in andthey will be you know, exit the
(41:44):
surface, or sometimes we willeven see some like, right, as
the lights are turning on firstthing in the morning, we can
still see coral spawning. But wehave never tried to, at least in
recent years since I've beenhere, we have never tried to
like get those gametes and tryand settle just because it's
such a work intensive process.Yeah. Well, thank you for
(42:09):
sharing so much. What C Corp waslike, that's cool. I didn't know
very much about what the projectwas. And it's really cool to see
the aquarium having an impactsort of globally. Also, you
know, knowing that you went outto Saipan and you help sort of
spawn these corals and like workon restoration work is so pretty
awesome. Our last couplequestions are our social media
(42:30):
questions that we did touch onwhy corals are important. But
one of the people actually askedHow successful has coral
restoration been so far? That'sa great question that I don't
have, you know, obvious hardcorestatistics on. But I think there
are more and more organizationspopping up working on coral
(42:51):
restoration. And a lot of it isusually pretty site specific. A
lot of local governments arecreating organizations that will
focus on restoration in aspecific area or creating
funding for organizations to besuccessful. And so it it
definitely has helped, you know,it's obviously not hurting, and
(43:13):
especially just from like acultural impact in those
specific communities on smallislands. creating that
connection with the localcommunity and the coral reefs is
super important. So even justthat is a big one educating
Right, exactly, and what theproblems are. I think that
helps, too. Speaking of anothersocial media question is how can
(43:38):
I help with coral restoration? Imean,
yeah.
But how can this person help andwhat can they do besides just
kind of learning about it,spreading the word and donating
to the cause? Like, is thereanything sort of focused that an
individual can do to help? Yeah,I unfortunately, it's kind of
the same answer that I'm surethey've heard before, you know,
(44:00):
because global warming is themain factor for coral reef.
degradation, you know, reducingyour carbon footprint carpooling
to work riding your bicycle.
I have one Yeah, coral safesunscreen. That's a yes, that is
a thing. That's a good one. Whatis in sunscreen that's killing
(44:22):
coral.
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