Sanorcallers observe the spread of coral in French Polynesia.
I immediately rose to the back of my cell boot. Later in the hot water of the South Pacific. My husband and 10 -year -old son then put the camera underwater. Together, we kicked on a nearby coral rock.
This was not our first chance to go away from the beautiful island of Taha in French Polynesia. My family had already searched for a catamaran in search of Society Islands for two weeks that we had chartered Dream of yacht in the world.
But it Used to For the first time as urban scientists, snorkeling. Our work: The coral below under the documents has sent an egg and sperm cloud. This is called broadcast spinning, and how is it Corals have sex To regenerate and make rocks.
We are shaking over the coral hill with colorful fish. Then we waited for whether Reef released his belongings or not.
In search of eggs and sperm, we were not just snoring in the morning. On January 18, more than 400 observers from 20 countries volunteered to see Coral Spoon. Sunurcler extends 11,000 miles of Pacific, which both stretched on the hemisphere from Polynesia to Tanzania. Our joint observations are helping to track the health of coral rocks in half the world.
More than 500 urban scientists have done coral documents worldwide.
“You have the only way to get a reef flexible,” says Vetia Liao, a marine biologist based in French Polynesia. You find a new coral generation, and this new generation can adopt its new environment.
This global urban science effort has focused on species of coral reefing species Ports Russia This is the sole type of coral Repay the day light instead of night.
It also spreads like a watch work: five days after the full moon, 90 minutes after sunrise during the hot weather.
Liao discovered this trend during a spectrum fishing near his home in Tahiti in November 2014. He says, “I was really surprised. I didn’t know that corals could occur during the day.”
Single coral species going to reproduce in daylight
No one did. Liao could not find a scientific study about spreading coral in sunlight instead of night. Therefore, he organized friends around the French Polynshia to confirm its trend The The Rock. In November 2019, they made documents Ports Russia Rotate around several islands at the same time.
But since most coral species spread only once every year, Liao assumed Ports Russia There was also an annual sponner. Then a friend told him that in December, “water was very cloudy”. Liao discovered that this type of coral spreads much more often than other species.
In 2021, Liao laid the foundation of the non -profit association Tama not Teroo – In January 2025, the World Observations event needed a lot of planning and harmony, including the media out Reach, developing a new app to record your data for volunteers, and creating an international network of Sanorcullers who know what to find.
My family learned about the program from an article by Air Tahiti’s flight magazine. As a two -child enthusiast snorkelers and world schoolers, my husband and my husband booked history and time in our calendars. What is the better way to promote the future responsibilities of the sea instead of engaging in collecting useful information about their inhabitants?
The author and his son rests to witness the spread of coral after a snorkel near Taho.
07:32, I saw that milky white puffs emerge from the underworld. Passion, I waved on my son and husband. We took down the diving in Snap Photo, moving among the breasts, they pumped millions of larvae that would spread around the sea to prepare new rocks that support all underwater critics.
“There is a genetic super highway of coral information flowing into the oceans, which we have no idea unless we study these things and study these things.” Ocean Genomic Atlas Project The purpose is to identify, sequence and catalog millions of small plontin swimming in our oceans, including coral larvae.
We returned to our cell boot to record our observations and upload photos to the mobile app, with a lot of happiness that our hobby helped to try to understand the oceans.
What triggers co -coral sex sex?
A few weeks later, Liao emailed the first summary of the results. Spinning has been confirmed in more than a dozen countries. For the first time, the observers did the documentary Ports Russia Spread simultaneously in both the southern hemisphere and the northern hemisphere. Another interesting discovery of the worldwide observation was that spinning was four hours delayed Ports Russia The colonies observed 40m and below the depth.
In some countries, observers did not do that Spreading documents, such as Coke Islands, Guam and the Philippines. Other regions, such as the Maldives and Tanzania, were a mixture of results, in which some sites spread and not others. This may mean that not all coral colonies are re -reproducing in the same month, or that local environmental factors affect the spread, such as the presence of freshwater after recent rains.
Big question to answer Next: What triggers this harmonious coral sex? The assumptions range from air or environmental pressure to water chemistry or sunlight. Once we know what a green light gives to regenerate the coral, we can better target this important maritime resources.
“This is a really great scientific mystery,” Liao says, “which is helping volunteers to evacuate Snorcullers and divers all over the world. “Citizen science is very powerful. You can get a lot of eyes in water at the same time. This is a really fast way to take concrete steps to protect coral rocks.”
