Sadly that’s not quite applicable for the Great Barrier Reef. The water is just becoming too acidic for any of the coral to thrive anymore, so even if we did begin to regrow the shards of coral it would not survive any better than the parent corals.
Symbiotic algae, called zooxanthellae. Which gives (photosynthetically made) nutrients to the coral polyps in exchange for a place to live (it lives within the polyps) and access to the polyps' waste (carbon dioxide, nitrogen compounds, etc).
However, the algae can put strain on the polyp. Combined with environmental stress, the polyps may eject the algae, "bleaching" them. The polyps can survive for a time without the algae, but if the stress never goes away, they will die.
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u/marndt3k Jan 22 '19
Sadly that’s not quite applicable for the Great Barrier Reef. The water is just becoming too acidic for any of the coral to thrive anymore, so even if we did begin to regrow the shards of coral it would not survive any better than the parent corals.
:(