SECORE's scientists mixed egg and sperm cells in the lab, watching them grow into swimming larvae and settle onto substrates. When the test tube coral babies reached that phase, the team transplanted the substrates onto the reef where they captured the samples. By opting for sexual reproduction, the team managed to create new genotypes that might be able to withstand pollution better than the current crop of Elkhorns. Opting for asexual reproduction would have merely created clones.

The group warns, however, that growing corals in the lab "can only support natural recovery, which means that conditions have to be appropriate to allow long term survival of outplanted corals and succession by other organisms to restore ecosystem functions." In the end, if we continue to overfish and pollute the oceans, coral reefs could still die out and take 25 percent of all marine species with them to the grave.

[Image credit: Paul Selvaggio, Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium]