Officials in Hawaii create nursery for fast-growing coral

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1 Officials in Hawaii create nursery for fast-growing coral By Caleb Jones, Associated Press on Word Count 671 A rare species of Hawaiian coral being used to create a seed bank grows in a tank at the Anuenue Fisheries Research Center s coral nursery in Honolulu, Hawaii, Feb. 11, Photo: AP/Caleb Jones HONOLULU Most of Hawaii's species of coral is unlike other coral around the world in that it grows very slowly, making restoration projects for endangered reefs in the state difficult. But officials in Hawaii have come up with a plan to grow large chunks of coral in a fraction of the time it would normally take. In doing so, they hope to create a stock of replenishing species to build up damaged or unhealthy reefs in the future. State officials gave a tour of their new coral nursery on Thursday, showing off their "FastGrow Protocol" and a rare coral seed bank. Hawaii's average coral grows about 1 centimeter per year, while the dominant species of coral around the world, mostly in warmer waters closer to the equator, grows at up to 30 centimeters a year, Division of Aquatic Resources Coral Nursery Manager David Gulko said.

2 The way Hawaii's coral grows makes it difficult to have a traditional replenishment program, he said, because they are usually housed in natural settings, meaning it would take decades to make large enough coral specimens to start to rebuild reefs. "The larger the coral, the more space it provides for fish and invertebrates and all the things that are important," he said. "That means recovery takes a really long time. You can't replace a hundred-year-old coral in less than 100 years until now with what we're doing." With the process they are using, Gulko said they will have a volleyball-sized chunk of coral in about one year, a fraction of the time it would take to grow naturally. "Bigger coral is much more important," he said. "If a coral this size is important to keep the shoreline from eroding, it can't wait 100 years. We need faster techniques." The way they are doing this is to take harbor coral that is not part of the natural reef, so they don't harm those ecosystems, quarantine it to ensure it is healthy and has no invasive species, then chop it up into tiny portions that grow the fastest. They then take those small pieces of healthy coral and expose them to optimal conditions in specially designed tanks. Once grown, the genetically identical chunks are then fused back together to make a single large portion of coral that they can transplant back onto reefs. When they first begin growing these specimens, they are put in artificial seawater that is closely monitored for optimal health. They carefully expose them to light that would mimic their natural depths in the ocean and provide certain minerals to ensure the fastestgrowing coral possible. Once they have been in that setting for long enough, the coral is moved into a natural seawater tank, still controlled but more closely resembling natural conditions, and assimilated back to their natural ocean reefs. Zac Forsman, a coral-recovery specialist with the state who has helped develop the technique they are using, said the project needs to be data-driven to find the best combination of conditions for the coral to grow as fast as possible. "Human beings, we manipulate our ecosystems. We've done it with forests, we've done it with planting trees. We've done it with farms and greenhouses. With the oceans we haven't done any of that," Forsman said. "It's all been just kind of decline. We've impacted it negatively, but we haven't really tried to go the other way." Bruce Anderson, the administrator of Hawaii's Division of Aquatic Resources, said the facility is unique in that it's an applied research facility where they can actually see what it takes to maintain and manage their reefs. "We're not growing enough coral here to make a huge difference immediately," Anderson said. But he hopes the project will help them better understand what it takes to "grow coral faster and plant out more reefs" in the future.

3 The facility also houses several rare coral tanks that the team is using to create a seed bank for threatened species. It acts as their insurance policy against losing those species altogether, Gulko said.

4 Quiz 1 Read the sentence from the article. Hawaii's average coral grows about 1 centimeter per year, while the dominant species of coral around the world, mostly in warmer waters closer to the equator, grows at up to 30 centimeters a year, Division of Aquatic Resources Coral Nursery Manager David Gulko said. Which of the following words would BEST replace the word "dominant" as used in the sentence without changing its meaning? effective superior prevalent overbearing 2 Read the paragraph from the article. They then take those small pieces of healthy coral and expose them to optimal conditions in specially designed tanks. Once grown, the genetically identical chunks are then fused back together to make a single large portion of coral that they can transplant back onto reefs. Which answer choice has the same meaning as "optimal" in the paragraph above? original ideal natural overall 3 Why does the author include the final three paragraphs of the article? to emphasize the best ways to conserve natural coral reefs to persuade that the research on coral reefs deserves more funding to indicate the future impact of the coral research being done at DAR to summarize the major problems for coral and the solutions discovered at DAR

5 4 Which of the following answer choices BEST describes the overall structure of the article? The article introduces the weakest points and evidence first, then presents the strongest. The article follows a chronological series of events, then discusses the importance of those events. The article presents a problem, then follows the process of a solution in progress, then presents the implications of the solution. The article presents a definition, then explores the significance of that definition, and finally makes a prediction about the future.