While Other Corals Migrate, Great Barrier Reef Will Perish

During past episodes of global warming, corals have migrated to remain in waters suitably cool for their survival, according to a coral expert quoted by the German Press Agency.

While migrating coral may sound hard to fathom, given the rock-like appearance, corals start as free-floating larvae, so a new reef could conceivably form anyplace one finds a suitable place to grow. As more do likewise, their shell-like exteriors could form new forests of coral in the shallows.

Teeming with colorful life, corals are thought of as rain forests of the sea, where diverse species live and interact. Losing corals would be a huge loss for the world's biodiversity, and with it any unique chemical compounds that might have been useful to science, medicine or industry.

Which is why the situation in the Great Barrier Reef off the northeastern coast of Australia is of such a concern. For corals to migrate, conditions in cooler waters have to be right. Already, summer temperatures frequently reach unhealthy levels for corals, but there's no shallow water in the cooler waters to the south that is suitable for corals to start anew. Some predict this natural wonder of the world could succumb to global warming in as little as 25 years.

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