Story perspectives
Genetically matched coral fragments recover color in seven weeks
By Drooid · · How we work
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Story summary
- Stanford University researchers found a bleached Pocillopora damicornis fragment regained color after one week of touching a healthy clone.
- Full recovery took roughly seven weeks, an order of magnitude faster than natural reef recovery.
- Physical contact was required for recovery, while fragments a few millimeters apart showed no improvement.
- The method succeeded only with genetically identical fragments, whereas mismatched genotypes failed like organ transplants.