>>RUTH GATES (University of Hawaii): Corals are extremely important.
Because they deposit these amazing structures,
corals produce an enormous amount of space and complexity of spaces for other
organisms to live in.
Often, I describe them as underwater cities bustling with life.
But when corals are exposed to increasing sea water temperatures
associated with climate change, their tissues will turn pale or white and
that's what we describe as coral bleaching.
[BREATHING THROUGH SCUBA GEAR, BUBBLES]
>>GATES: Reefs are declining globally,
but we have to stop just documenting the declines and now start doing something
about them.
[DRIVING MUSIC PLAYS]
>>GATES: So, we're on the water now and we're on our way out to one of the patch reefs
in Kaneohe Bay. There are many of them and we're going to the one called Number 15.
And on Reef 15 we're going to get into the water and we're going to look at
bleached and non-bleached corals.
>>DIVER: So, when we bring the corals up maybe we can hand them to you on the boat?
>>GATES: That sounds great.
>>DIVER: Yeah.
>>GATES: In the last two years in Hawaii,
we've seen more corals turning pale white or bleached than we've ever seen before.
And what it really means is that the symbiotic algae that live
inside the corals' tissues and give them their color—they've been lost and the
coral will eventually die.
[BUBBLES]
>>GATES: But there was one thing that we saw on the reef that was very intriguing to me.
[BREATHING THROUGH SCUBA GEAR, BUBBLES]
>>GATES: So, that's great. If you'll just give it to me quickly, I'll put them over the top.
Excellent. That's perfect. Thank you.
So, you can see the two pieces of coral here.
One of them is dark brown and that's very healthy. The other one is very pale and they're
both identical species and they were collected immediately adjacent to each other.
[BUBBLES]
>>GATES: So, these corals have been exposed to very severe temperature disturbances this year,
and by all expectations they should all be dead, but they're not.
We still see healthy corals and these are the corals we call "super corals."
And we call them that because they are unaffected by the conditions or the stress that is
causing other corals immediately adjacent to them to pale and whiten.
[BOAT ENGINE]
>>GATES: And so, we're gonna take them back to the lab and now we're gonna do some exploratory
work to see why one of them is doing so much better on the reef than the other.
[LOW, CHIMING MUSIC]