The dying coral reefs in Australia can still be saved, according to a marine biologist. They need to speed up their conservation effort, and robots can speed up coral propagation.
Robots For Coral Propagation in Australia
Marine biologist Taryn Foster is leading the effort to save the corals in Australia. she has been lending hands to save reefs struggling due to rising temperatures and ocean acidity.
Growing replacement corals in the nursery and manually grafting them onto existing reefs is expensive, labor-intensive, and slow. Corals usually take three to 10 years to grow.
Foster's company Coral Maker is working on accelerating the process. They have collected coral fragments and cut them into pieces to propagate and grow them in nurseries on land. They also crossbred species to be heat-resistance and experimented with probiotics to make the corals strong enough to survive deadly diseases, Wired reported.
When multiple coral fragments with premade skeletons are planted out on reefs, they can reach their full size within 12 to 18 months, provided they are planted in a suitable environment. According to Foster, Corals are picky - they like warm but not too warm and bright but not too bright environments.
The challenge for the team is to deploy the corals at scale, and that's where they need robots. Foster is working with researchers at the Autodesk AI Lab in San Francisco to develop two types of robotic arms with image sensors. One can cut coral fragments into smaller pieces and glue them into plugs. The other can implant those plugs into the limestone skeletons.
Once the robots run on an operational scale, Foster aims to have multiple projects on reefs and coastlines worldwide to bring coral propagation at a much faster rate and on a bigger scale.
ALSO READ : Chemical Compound in Sea Corals Show Potential for Effective Drugs Against Diseases Including Cancer
Coral Maker For Restoring Coral Reefs
Foster founded Coral Maker in 2019. It has the ambitious goal of restoring a million corals a year.
Foster told Australian Financial Review that coral reef restoration has already been happening worldwide in the last decades. It is done by NGOs and mostly on a very small scale because they do it manually.
Foster aims to scale things in the manufacturing industry. She thought of using techniques in reef restoration.
Coral Maker has partnered with a local commercial coral grower, Abrolhos Coral, and Live Rock in placing seedlings and coral skeletons in the oceans of Abrolhos Islands.
Traditionally, coral propagation involves taking a live cutting from an existing colony and manually grafting it, and allowing that piece to grow its skeleton. Foster's company aims to scale the restoration process and help repair reefs that suffered from bleaching events. They also relocate coral colonies to better locations to withstand climate change.
She has moved to San Francisco to study at the California Academy of Sciences. She is now into robotics, 3D design, and engineering because she believes those technologies can help scale up the coral restoration process.
Check out more news and information on Coral Reefs in Science Times.
