Corals In Acid

A recent Brevia in Science indicates that skeleton-producing corals can actually survive these acidic conditions maintaining basic life functions including reproduction. In the experiments after one month total skeleton dissolution occurred. The polyps themselves however elongated, dissociated from the colony, and affixed to hard substrate. Indeed, polyp biomass increased 3x that of polyps associated with calcified colonies. After 1 year, the solitary polyps were transferred back to normal conditions where the calcified and reformed colonies. Compared to organisms that survived mass extinction events by seeking geographic localities with favorable conditions, geographical refugia, the authors suggest that corals may use physiological refugia, switching between hard and soft forms, to survive stressful conditions...