Research lab
Australia's government tropical marine research agency.
All 52 donor-recipient pairs of Great Barrier Reef coral fragments fused in a lab test led by the Australian Institute of Marine Science. Recipients regained color fastest at the join, but the researchers could not establish that donor algae crossed it.
Reality
Researcher David Schoeman warns a record El Niño could flip parts of the Great Barrier Reef to seaweed after six bleaching events in ten years. Warming now brings bleaching even in cooler La Niña years, he says, so corals get less time to recover between events.
Reality
Australian Institute of Marine Science biologists re-identified 31 black teatfish by DNA after 24 years and estimate the species can live more than 120 years. Adults barely grow, so a teatfish's size reveals little about the age of an endangered animal still prized as a delicacy.
Reality
Woods Hole researchers are playing healthy-reef sounds to Caribbean coral larvae as hard coral cover for 2020-2024 sits 9.5% below its 1980-2009 level. Larvae they draw in will meet hotter water in 2027, and no settlement counts have been reported.
Reality
The GCRMN's 2025 assessment, built on more than 21 million observations, puts global hard coral cover down 9.5% and the interval between bleaching events at five to six years, short enough that the next hit lands before a recovery finishes.
Reality