A team of researchers recently developed a promising approach identified as probiotic bacteria to resist coral bleaching. This comes after images of bare, naked white coral reefs have been progressively spreading all over the world.
A Phys.org report said, the tropical oceans' typically colorful reefs, which for many species of the marine ecosystem is a home are suffering from the rising temperatures of water because of global warming.
No heat relief for the corals, this report specified, is in sight. The researchers are desperately looking for ways to develop temperature-sensitive organism that are more resistant to heat stress.
Promising Approach
A team of scientists led by GEOMAR Helmholtz Center for Ocean Research Kiel is currently developing a promising approach, which is grounded on a therapeutic cure known from medicine for humans.
The study entitled "Towards enhancing coral heat tolerance: a "microbiome transplantation" treatment using inoculations of homogenized coral tissues," was published in the Microbiome international journal.
According to GEOMAR's Dr. Anna Roik, the idea is that probiotic bacteria that have beneficial functions could contribute to a coral to better endure heat stress.
Dr. Roik, lead author of the research which was financially backed as part of a Future Ocean Network project at Kiel University.
Microbiome Transplantation
In this ongoing study, explained Roik, they tested the method of a "microbiome transplantation," inspired by microbiome-based applications known for example from clinical cures.
The research team performed coral microbiome transplantation experiments with the Pocillopora and Porites corals in the Andaman Sea in Thailand.
The scientists investigated if this approach can improve the heat resistance of corals by modifying the microbial microbiome.
A similar EurekAlert! specified that, initially, they looked for more "donor" corals that are heat-tolerant. Referring to their work, Dr. Roik said, they then used material from the donor corals' coral tissue to inject what they described as conspecific, heat-sensitive receivers, and then, recorded their bleaching responses and microbiome changes through the use of gene analysis approach called 16S rRNA gene metabarcoding.
Bleached Corals
Findings of the study showed the recipient corals of both sorts bleached more mildly compared to the control group during a short-term heat stress test at 34 degrees Celsius.
Furthermore, according to the head of the Marine Symbioses Research Unit at GEOMAR, Prof. Dr. Ute Hentschel Humeida, who's also co-author of the study, their results show that the injected corals were able to reject the heat stress reaction for a short span of time.
In addition to that, the microbiome data propose that the 'inoculated' or bleached corals may be in favor of "putative bacterial symbionts," continued explaining Dr. Roik.
Nevertheless, further investigational studies are necessitated to untangle or loosen the exact mechanism of action, not to mention, long-term file-based research to examine the durability of the impact, elaborated the marine biologist, looking ahead.
Probiotic Bacteria Benefits
As indicated in the study, probiotic treatments have already proven to be an effective tool for tweaking host health and performance specifically in insect model organisms, human medicine, and agriculture.
For example, crop plant inoculations with what the researchers described as beneficial bacterial consortia have been done to increase crop yields or ward off plant pathogens.
Essentially, heat tolerance of an insect model organism identified as pea aphid was successfully enhanced by means of inoculation with its obligate bacterial symbiont's heat-tolerant strain.
Specifically, approaches of the human gut microbiome transplantation have arisen as successful treatments depending on the transmission of living, beneficial microbiomes to symptomatic patients from a healthy human donor.
Related information about coral bleaching is shown on TIME's YouTube video below:
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