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Breeding Corals with super genes


sen5241b

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Wouldn't it still take ridiculously long for all the coral to grow back regardless?

 

 

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Right, but the idea is that the new corals would be more hardy 

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Right, but the idea is that the new corals would be more hardy

That would happen naturally with the corals that survive the heat anyway. The living ones would reproduce and pass on the genes that allowed them to live. The problem would solve itself. It would just take forever. I don't really see how taking the remaining corals and breeding them would hasten the process as they would already do exactly that in their natural environment.

 

 

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Edited by mari.harutunian
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I suppose they could splice the heat resistant gene of a surviving coral into the DNA of a coral that would not normally survive just to keep it from extinction? But none of these coral reefs will really grow back in our lifetimes.

 

 

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That would happen naturally with the corals that survive the heat anyway. The living ones would reproduce and pass on the genes that allowed them to live. The problem would solve itself. It would just take forever. I don't really see how taking the remaining corals and breeding them would hasten the process as they would already do exactly that in their natural environment.

 

 

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From the article, it looks like their settling coral larvae in a controlled environment. Not fragging. They may get better yields in the lab versus the wild. If so, then they'll be able to increase successful reproduction over what would happen in the wild.

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From the article, it looks like their settling coral larvae in a controlled environment. Not fragging. They may get better yields in the lab versus the wild. If so, then they'll be able to increase successful reproduction over what would happen in the wild.

They do take samples from the wild to use then I'm guessing use their larvae. If they are increasing yields that's what I'd like to hear about rather than the ethics because all of our land crops are genetically manipulated by artificial selection anyway. They also only specifically say the gene for heat resistance. Otherwise they say "the best genes" or "super genes". The article is interesting but I'd like to hear more about their results, predictions, and methods. I'm just a stickler for the specifics. Had to explain my lab work in bio to a much higher degree than this article. Of course that's not great for the consumption of the average person.

 

 

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Edited by mari.harutunian
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They do take samples from the wild to use then I'm guessing use their larvae. If they are increasing yields that's what I'd like to hear about rather than the ethics because all of our land crops are genetically manipulated by artificial selection anyway. They also only specifically say the gene for heat resistance. Otherwise they say "the best genes" or "super genes". The article is interesting but I'd like to hear more about their results, predictions, and methods. I'm just a stickler for the specifics. Had to explain my lab work in bio to a much higher degree than this article. Of course that's not great for the consumption of the average person.

 

 

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There's an image that shows them floating larvae from a pipette into a tank with aged disks (showing signs of coralline algae) . It's about halfway down. 

 

Most of the "selection" sounds like it's being done by nature from survivors. 

 

There is genetic work being done in Florida that I'm aware of. Some of that effort is trying to identify why some stands of farmed corals being used to re-populate some of Florida's reefs are suddenly dying off after a few years. In that case, I don't think that they're trying to re-engineer the coral, but trying to find some common characteristic that may be behind the unexpected decline.

 

Corals have been around for millions of years. There's evidence of fossilized corals in some of the most unexpected places - including the deserts and high mountaintops of the US. Some reefs of today may be in serious decline, but I wouldn't be at all surprised to see the beginnings of new reefs showing up in unexpected places.  That's not to say that everything is good with what's happening today or that we shouldn't be concerned. It's just an opinion on resilience.

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There's an image that shows them floating larvae from a pipette into a tank with aged disks (showing signs of coralline algae) . It's about halfway down.

 

Most of the "selection" sounds like it's being done by nature from survivors.

 

There is genetic work being done in Florida that I'm aware of. Some of that effort is trying to identify why some stands of farmed corals being used to re-populate some of Florida's reefs are suddenly dying off after a few years. In that case, I don't think that they're trying to re-engineer the coral, but trying to find some common characteristic that may be behind the unexpected decline.

 

Corals have been around for millions of years. There's evidence of fossilized corals in some of the most unexpected places - including the deserts and high mountaintops of the US. Some reefs of today may be in serious decline, but I wouldn't be at all surprised to see the beginnings of new reefs showing up in unexpected places. That's not to say that everything is good with what's happening today or that we shouldn't be concerned. It's just an opinion on resilience.

I was referring to the mini colonies pictured above the Pipette picture.

 

Breeding is artificial selection which is genetic manipulation. This is why we have 6 different vegetables that came from the wild mustard plant(like broccoli).

 

This is the first I've heard of the farmed coral die off. Mind linking me to an article?

 

And I sure hope coral is as resilient as history would have us think.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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I was referring to the mini colonies pictured above the Pipette picture.

 

Breeding is artificial selection which is genetic manipulation. This is why we have 6 different vegetables that came from the wild mustard plant(like broccoli).

 

This is the first I've heard of the farmed coral die off. Mind linking me to an article?

 

And I sure hope coral is as resilient as history would have us think.

 

 

 

Further down, you see the same disks with small mini colonies. Those, I assume, are lab-bred. The pictures that you refer to may be stock collected on the reef. One of the pictures shows devices that are used to collect coral spawn. I'm unclear how they're getting larvae: Whether they're collecting them in the wild or inducing spawning in the lab.

 

I don't regard selection from surviving wild stock as genetic manipulation. If that's the case, every one of us is genetically manipulated since our parents supposedly chose their partners over somebody else. The ethics discussion - if there is one - is a matter of promoting survival of one genotype over others by increasing their numbers, not manipulating their genes.

 

I'm not sure if there's an article yet on the survival of outplanted corals in the Keys. I had that discussion with Coral Restoration Foundation a couple of years ago as we discussed ways that we could support them. They're working in concert with researchers at Nova Southeastern University and other places studying this and other factors influencing outcomes of replanting efforts. 

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BTW, I don't think there's any indication that they're cross-breeding corals in the lab and producing & selecting new genotypes. I don't think that there's that level of understanding and control at this point. The best that can probably be done now (I'm guessing) is to try to induce a colony to release gametes in the water naturally, and to take the resulting planulae and encourage settlement. Even that would be quite an accomplishment over what we were doing just 10 years ago.

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Further down, you see the same disks with small mini colonies. Those, I assume, are lab-bred. The pictures that you refer to may be stock collected on the reef. One of the pictures shows devices that are used to collect coral spawn. I'm unclear how they're getting larvae: Whether they're collecting them in the wild or inducing spawning in the lab.

 

I don't regard selection from surviving wild stock as genetic manipulation. If that's the case, every one of us is genetically manipulated since our parents supposedly chose their partners over somebody else. The ethics discussion - if there is one - is a matter of promoting survival of one genotype over others by increasing their numbers, not manipulating their genes.

 

I'm not sure if there's an article yet on the survival of outplanted corals in the Keys. I had that discussion with Coral Restoration Foundation a couple of years ago as we discussed ways that we could support them. They're working in concert with researchers at Nova Southeastern University and other places studying this and other factors influencing outcomes of replanting efforts.

 

 

All of us, assuming our parents didn't pick randomly, have artificially selected genes because people pick based on some trait. That is the standard definition of artificial selection. Genetic engineering or manipulation is a step up where it is done to get a certain phenotype or genotype in the offspring(like rice plants and drought resistance) instead of just because it indicates a healthy organism(like peacocks and feathers or people and attractiveness). They are not manipulating genes yet when picking the surviving corals. They are manipulating genes by breeding the most heat resistant corals together in order to increase that gene in the offspring. Genetic engineering is not nearly as invasive as people think it is at the most basic level. It does get very invasive when gene splicing is used to make glowing mice.

 

While most people just consider breeding as normal and non invasive, it is still genetic manipulation/engineering because the genes are being artificially selected for in order to change the offspring. This is the textbook definition of these terms, not the common one.

 

As for the ethics and where they got their breeding stock, it's not very clear exactly what they mean in this article.

 

 

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All of us, assuming our parents didn't pick randomly, have artificially selected genes because people pick based on some trait. That is the standard definition of artificial selection. Genetic engineering or manipulation is a step up where it is done to get a certain phenotype or genotype in the offspring(like rice plants and drought resistance) instead of just because it indicates a healthy organism(like peacocks and feathers or people and attractiveness). They are not manipulating genes yet when picking the surviving corals. They are manipulating genes by breeding the most heat resistant corals together in order to increase that gene in the offspring. Genetic engineering is not nearly as invasive as people think it is at the most basic level. It does get very invasive when gene splicing is used to make glowing mice.

 

While most people just consider breeding as normal and non invasive, it is still genetic manipulation/engineering because the genes are being artificially selected for in order to change the offspring. This is the textbook definition of these terms, not the common one.

 

As for the ethics and where they got their breeding stock, it's not very clear exactly what they mean in this article.

 

 

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Upon a second reading, I gathered that that might have been what you were getting at. I don't think that they're crossing to select heat-resistant genotypes. I don't think that we know that much about coral reproduction to do that yet. (Plus, the cycle on such a process given the slow rate of reproduction and growth would be years and years.) More likely that they're collecting spawn (possibly even inducing it) and growing and outplanting whatever they get. In this manner, if they can improve survival rates by increasing successful settlements over rates in the wild, they might stand a chance of getting a higher rate of recovery.

 

Two or three years ago, we had a speaker talk to us about work that was going on at SECORE. Even then, we were still collecting gametes in the wild and trying to get them to settle in the lab. Success was spotty at best, but they were learning. 

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Upon a second reading, I gathered that that might have been what you were getting at. I don't think that they're crossing to select heat-resistant genotypes. I don't think that we know that much about coral reproduction to do that yet. (Plus, the cycle on such a process given the slow rate of reproduction and growth would be years and years.) More likely that they're collecting spawn (possibly even inducing it) and growing and outplanting whatever they get. In this manner, if they can improve survival rates by increasing successful settlements over rates in the wild, they might stand a chance of getting a higher rate of recovery.

 

Two or three years ago, we had a speaker talk to us about work that was going on at SECORE. Even then, we were still collecting gametes in the wild and trying to get them to settle in the lab. Success was spotty at best, but they were learning.

We do have the ability to select for heat resistant genes it would just have to be old school like Mendel and the pea plants. Pick the most heat resistant, induce spawn and breed them, grow them out, expose them to heat, breed the survivors, repeat. They might not be "crossing" between species that have the ability to breed together but they could be using breeding to get the heat resistant gene somehow. It would take forever to do, but I don't know what "breeding for super genes" could possibly be otherwise. Just inducing breeding in a lab of the surviving corals would increase the amount of offspring with the genes the parent corals had used to survive, but then how are they "super" genes. The way I see it, they could either be breeding to get the most heat resistant coral or inducing spawning, growing the corals out, putting them back onto the reefs, and then letting them reproduce on their own to increase the % of the population that has the genes to survive- which I really don't consider "super genes" but I guess that's an opinion.

 

 

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We do have the ability to select for heat resistant genes it would just have to be old school like Mendel and the pea plants. Pick the most heat resistant, induce spawn and breed them, grow them out, expose them to heat, breed the survivors, repeat. They might not be "crossing" between species that have the ability to breed together but they could be using breeding to get the heat resistant gene somehow. It would take forever to do, but I don't know what "breeding for super genes" could possibly be otherwise. Just inducing breeding in a lab of the surviving corals would increase the amount of offspring with the genes the parent corals had used to survive, but then how are they "super" genes. The way I see it, they could either be breeding to get the most heat resistant coral or inducing spawning, growing the corals out, putting them back onto the reefs, and then letting them reproduce on their own to increase the % of the population that has the genes to survive- which I really don't consider "super genes" but I guess that's an opinion.

 

 

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"Super genes" was the term used by the author or editor, not the scientists. I've noticed a lot a lot of overstatements in headlines recently.

 

One could take that (Mendel's) approach, but it would be extremely long and costly to implement. I doubt that they would find funding to do it that way.

 

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