保持珊瑚礁生机的创造性技术

保持珊瑚礁生机的创造性技术

We've heard plenty about the rapid and dramatic loss of coral reefs over the last decades. According to some estimates, as much as half of the world's coral has already disappeared in the last 30 years alone. Parts of Australia's Great Barrier Reef had lost more than 70 percent of their coral by 2016, and some scientists are calling coral loss an extinction-level event.

在过去的几十年里，我们已经听说了很多关于珊瑚礁迅速和急剧消失的事情。据估计，仅在过去30年里，世界上多达一半的珊瑚已经消失。到2016年，澳大利亚大堡礁的部分地区已经失去了超过70%的珊瑚，一些科学家称珊瑚的消失是一个灭绝级别的事件。

Coral is not only beautiful and colorful; it also provides a large number of ecosystem services. (Photo: Jolanta Wojcicka/Shutterstock)

Scientists are now scrambling for ways to save what's left of Earth's coral reefs, brainstorming and testing a wide range of strategies. Many of those ideas are collected in a pair of reports from the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, released in November 2018 and June 2019. As the reports point out, human help may "buy time" for coral reefs, but truly saving them will require addressing the main existential threat they face: climate change.

科学家们现在正在努力寻找拯救地球上仅存的珊瑚礁的方法，集思广益，并对各种策略进行测试。2018年11月和2019年6月，美国国家科学院、工程院和医学院发布了两份报告，收集了其中的许多观点。报告指出，人类的帮助可能为珊瑚礁“赢得时间”，但真正拯救它们将需要解决它们面临的主要生存威胁:气候变化。

In the meantime, here are a few of the tactics scientists are considering to help coral survive and reproduce for as long as possible.

与此同时，以下是一些科学家正在考虑的策略，以帮助珊瑚尽可能长时间地生存和繁殖。

1. Cloud brightening

云层增白

Cloud brightening could protect coral reefs by deflecting harmful solar radiation. (Photo: nicolas poizot/Shutterstock)

To save coral reefs in the ocean, one oceanographer is looking to the skies for help. Dr. Daniel Harrison is working on a method called "cloud brightening," which would use clouds to essentially provide a protective barrier over coral reefs.

为了拯救海洋中的珊瑚礁，一位海洋学家正在向天空寻求帮助。丹尼尔·哈里森博士正在研究一种名为“云层增白”的方法，这种方法将利用云层为珊瑚礁提供一个保护屏障。

Cloud brightening involves pumping sea water through a filter and using a fan to spray the water toward the clouds. The water would evaporate in the sky, but the salt particles in the water would stay behind and condense with other water — therefore making clouds appear brighter. The theory is that brighter clouds would deflect the sun's rays, which would keep the ocean water temperature cooler and in turn hopefully prevent coral reefs from bleaching and dying.

云层增白包括通过过滤器抽取海水，并用风扇将水喷向云层。水会在天空中蒸发，但水中的盐颗粒会留在后面，与其他水凝结——因此使云看起来更亮。他们的理论是，较亮的云层会使太阳光线偏转，从而使海水温度保持较低，从而有希望防止珊瑚礁漂白和死亡。

2. Assisted evolution

辅助进化

Coral fragments that can survive in hotter, more acidic water are replanted on reefs in hopes they'll propagate new coral. (Photo: Debra James/Shutterstock)

This method uses coral fragments and relies on a survival of the fittest approach, focusing on those that can tolerate, survive and even thrive in hotter, more acidic water.

这种方法使用珊瑚碎片，并依赖于适者生存的方法，重点是那些能够忍受、生存，甚至在更热、更酸的水中茁壮成长的珊瑚。

A team of scientists in the Florida Keys break off pieces of coral and submerge them in hot, acidic water tanks. The fragments that survive are attached to artificial "trees" underwater so they can continue to grow before being transplanted back to the reef from which they were taken. It's a painstaking process that involves replanting each individual fragment one-by-one.

佛罗里达群岛的一组科学家将珊瑚碎片分离出来，并将其放入热的酸性水箱中。幸存下来的碎片附着在水下的人造“树”上，这样它们可以继续生长，然后再被移植回它们被取走的珊瑚礁。这是一个艰苦的过程，包括一个接一个地重新种植每个单独的碎片。

3. Genetic selection

基因选择

Scientists found that corals in the Red Sea might be naturally heat-resistant and able to survive temperatures several degrees higher than normal. (Photo: Svetlan/Shutterstock)

Retrotransposons, also known as "jumping genes," are genes that replicate and mutate. In 2017, researchers from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia discovered genes associated with heat resistance in the symbiotic algae that live within corals. In theory, the genes would make the algae more heat-tolerant, and if the algae can survive higher temperatures, the hope is that corals would, too.

逆转录转座子，也被称为“跳跃基因”，是复制和突变的基因。2017年，沙特阿拉伯阿卜杜拉国王科技大学的研究人员在珊瑚体内的共生藻类中发现了与耐热性相关的基因。从理论上讲，基因会使藻类更耐热，如果藻类能在更高的温度下生存，珊瑚也有希望。

4. Gene storage banks

基因储存银行

This is what bleached coral looks like. (Photo: Ethan Daniels/Shutterstock)

"We need to be gathering this genetic diversity and trying to help while there's still a lot of diversity in place in the ocean," Mary Hagedorn, a senior research scientist at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, who's based in Kaneohe, Hawaii, told NPR's Science Friday.

“我们需要收集这种基因多样性，并试图在海洋中仍然有很多多样性的时候提供帮助，”玛丽·哈格多恩告诉NPR的《科学星期五》，她是位于夏威夷卡内奥赫的史密森保护生物学研究所的高级研究科学家。

It's encouraging that all this work is ongoing. "We created these problems," Michael P. Crosby, president of the Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium in Sarasota, Florida, told The New York Times. "We have to get actively involved in helping the corals come back."

令人鼓舞的是，所有这些工作都在进行中。“我们制造了这些问题，”佛罗里达州萨拉索塔莫特海洋实验室和水族馆的总裁迈克尔·p·克罗斯比告诉《纽约时报》。“我们必须积极参与帮助珊瑚回归。”

But while there is renewed hope and action for corals, it would obviously be simpler (not to mention less costly), to mitigate global warming and water pollution now.

然而，虽然珊瑚有了新的希望和行动，但现在减轻全球变暖和水污染显然会更简单(更不用说成本更低)。