Scientists Unveil the Secret Sex Life of Coral

A new study utilizing aquarium data has uncovered the key factors that orchestrate mysterious synchronized coral spawning.

Corals play an essential role in ocean ecosystems, and like many organisms, they are under threat from climate change and other human activities. To better protect coral, it’s first necessary to understand them, in particular their reproductive life cycle, which only happens once a year.

For the first time, researchers have produced a model for coral spawning, based on various environmental factors. They achieved this by tapping an often overlooked source of aquatic knowledge, an aquarium.

Coral Biology and Reproduction
Given their branching shapes or waving tendrils, you would be forgiven for thinking of coral as the trees of the sea. But they are really colonies of small anemones, some of which form sturdy structures which are often the familiar shapes we see in reefs. As they are not plants, they don’t reproduce using seeds, but actually reproduce as animals do, with eggs and sperm. The way they do this, though, is mysterious and rare to see.