How do Gulf corals beat the heat?

The waters of the Gulf reach 35 C in the summer; the Gulf’s corals have found their way to handle the heat and survive over thousands of years. The symbiosis life that corals and algae live is a way to acclimatise to hot water. Producing sugars by the algae inside the coral’s tissue for energy and the corals provide to the algae shelter, nutrients and carbon dioxide for photosynthesis. When temperatures increase more than 35C, corals change the process of exchange.

Corals reproduce in one of two ways: fragmentation or larval production. Fragmentation is when a piece of coral breaks off and lands somewhere and starts growing. Coral larvae are produced in massive spawning events; billions of tiny larvae are released and float around the sea until they have the ability to attach themselves to a rocky surface and start growing. Sometimes they don’t like their new neighborhood, so they change their home.