Coral reefs are dying due to global ocean temperatures, but Taryn Foster’s solution could help save them. (Image Credit: GeoNadir/Unsplash)
According to Taryn Foster, the chief of Coral Maker, Australia’s coral reef can be saved much faster than expected. Biologists are determined to help the reefs affected by increased temperatures and ocean acidity. So far, they gathered coral pieces, cut them into smaller bits for reproduction and grew them in nurseries, performed probiotics experiments to keep them safe against disease, and crossbred species for heat-resistance qualities. Placing many of these improved reefs onto damaged ones isn’t sufficient for preserving ecosystems. One solution for this involves using robots.
Polyps collect calcium carbonate from seawater to create their skeleton. Afterward, these merge with corals made of similar genetic composition, producing coral reefs. Sadly, the ocean acidity increases because it takes in more of the atmosphere’s carbon dioxide. In turn, polyps struggle to create a skeleton. Coral reefs are dying due to increased acid and global ocean temperatures.
The Great Barrier Reef’s coral growth isn’t progressing because heat waves cause the coral to release small algae living within their tissue. This effect makes the reefs bleach, heightening disease and starvation risks. It takes a lot of work, time, and money to graft replacement coals on living reefs. A coral normally takes three to ten years just to form a full skeleton, but Foster hopes to make that happen faster. She creates limestone shapes, which mirror a coral’s skeleton, through dry-casting machines. The idea here is to present young corals with an acceptable foundation, allowing them to grow more quickly.
Coral Maker’s prototype is a dome-shaped skeleton featuring six plugs for each coral fragment. This design is nature-inspired. Brain corals grow in a dome structure and branch outwards, while plate corals grow upwards. Even then, a dome skeleton presents obstacles. For example, these are difficult to manufacture, fuse objects on, and pack on a pallet. So Foster constantly adjusts the design, allowing the dry-casting machine to create 10,000 pieces per day at a low cost. Factories could then copy this process.
It would only take approximately one year to a year and a half for the skeletons to grow fully on a coral reef, depending on whether the water, location, and light provide ideal conditions. Corals thrive best in warm and bright environments and rely on currents to bring in food without damaging the structure.
In Western Australia, Foster’s first coral batch has grown in a skeleton for more than a year. This helps determine how well corals thrive in ideal environments and whether or not divers can move the skeletons. On December 22nd, Foster’s team deployed another coral batch with disc-shaped skeletons on an underwater farm.
Although these corals are home to the skeletons, the on-land manual tasks must be automated to create 1.7 million corals on 280,000 skeletons annually. So Foster works with Autodesk AI Lab researchers to build and train two robotic arms featuring image sensors. One arm breaks coral fragments into smaller pieces and glues them into each plug, while the other implants the plugs into limestone skeletons. These will be deployed on worldwide coastlines and reefs once these run on an operational scale.
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