While Pacific reefs have long been markedly healthier than those in the Caribbean, a series of enormous bleaching events, beginning in 2016, have affected massive swaths of the Great Barrier Reef and wiped out any remaining complacency among Pacific coral conservationists. (As seen in this earlier bioGraphic feature, Coral “bleaching” happens when ocean temperatures rise to levels that cause polyps to expel the symbiotic algae that give the hosts both their color and their main source of food.) Every experienced coral biologist, no matter where he or she works, has a story about a favorite reef that is forever changed.

Kara Rising, SECORE’s administrative manager, recently closed her psychotherapy practice in Ohio in order to devote herself to ocean conservation, and she’s often struck by the unrelenting emotional toll of conservation work. “There are times when I think, ‘Hey, should we have a bit of group therapy here?’” she says with a laugh.

Yet the grimmest story about the world’s coral reefs is also the simplest. For the conservationists in the Curaçao workshop, hope lies in complexity, in the many overlooked departures from the mean. Some corals are killed outright by bleaching, for instance, but not all; some species withstand it better, or recover from it more quickly, and some colonies within species seem to be more resilient, too. Some species, like the Caribbean’s threatened staghorn and elkhorn corals, grow very quickly but are particularly vulnerable to stress; other species, like the brain corals, grow slowly but can tolerate a lot.

“Corals are in a critical situation, but they’re not as flimsy as we think,” says Chamberland. “If we give them a chance to deal with just one or two stresses instead of six, some can survive, and those that do are the ones we should be studying. We should be asking, ‘What do they do that makes them win?’”

Chamberland, Vermeij, and the other researchers associated with SECORE have concluded that if they can help preserve variation, they can help preserve hope. And their first step toward preserving hope is to catch some corals in the act—to collect a few hundred thousand coral eggs and sperm as they’re released into the ocean.

In the CARMABI classroom, Chamberland explains the protocol for gamete collection, laying out the cone-shaped nets that will be draped over the coral colonies and the plastic collection tubes that will catch gametes from Diploria labyrinthiformis, the species of brain coral affectionately known as D. lab. The nets are made from tarps, and none of the gear is high-tech—in fact, it’s deliberately designed to be low-tech, accessible to conservationists with even fewer resources than those at this modest field station.

Chamberland describes how gametes are handled back in the lab, long after dark, and how researchers sometimes keep watch on the embryos until the next morning. When she asks if there are any questions, Houtepen raises his hand. “So,” he says hesitantly, “do you sleep during this process?”

Chamberland laughs, but doesn’t answer. “Let’s do this,” she says.