- 13 hours ago
In the third year of this seven-year project, a special in-depth look at one of the habitats under most urgent threat from climate change, coral reefs, and the innovative techniques that could provide a much-needed lifeline and hope for the future.
恢复珊瑚礁不仅是挽救一个物种，更是为了维护地球生态平衡和人类社会的可持续发展。通过前沿科学与全球合作的结合，我们有望为这些脆弱的生态系统开辟一条新的生命通道，守护蓝色星球的未来.
恢复珊瑚礁不仅是挽救一个物种，更是为了维护地球生态平衡和人类社会的可持续发展。通过前沿科学与全球合作的结合，我们有望为这些脆弱的生态系统开辟一条新的生命通道，守护蓝色星球的未来.
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AnimalsTranscript
00:05coral reefs cover just one percent of the ocean floor and yet they're home to a quarter of all
00:11marine life this is totally overwhelming a complete sensory overload it's extraordinary
00:25reefs feed us and keep us safe shielding coastlines from storm surges and rising sea levels but the
00:34corals that live in warm clear waters face a multitude of challenges that threaten their
00:39very existence half of all reefs are already dead or damaged and without action we could lose most
00:47of what's left in the next 20 to 30 years scientists all over the world are racing to try and
00:55find
00:55creative solutions just about anything they can do to give corals a helping hat in this the third
01:05series of our changing planet where we look at precious ecosystems and the people trying to save
01:11them we're focusing on the habitat that's facing the most urgent threat our coral reefs I'm taking a
01:20look at high-tech creative and imaginative solutions to the coral crisis that are being developed on dry
01:26land here in the UK and also in the US on their own none of these projects can save our
01:35reefs but the
01:36hope is that together they'll deliver a crucial lifeline and a much-needed conservation success
01:41story I'm back in the Maldives where a pioneering team of scientists is attempting to regrow a damaged
01:50reef by helping it to reproduce more effectively it's going to be exhilarating seat of our pants kind of
01:56science it's a groundbreaking astonishing idea to combine a fertility treatment for corals with
02:04incredibly incredibly a soundtrack of fish vocalizations to bring life back to this reef it's a world
02:11first so no one knows if we can pull it off if it works it's going to be a global
02:16game-changer
02:30the Maldives is the flattest country on earth much of it just 90 centimeters above the waves these reefs
02:38act as a living shield protecting half a million people that live here from the sea they're also home
02:45to a dazzling number of animals there may be as many as a million different species that rely on coral
02:55reefs to survive they have a baffling array of different forms tables vases branching staghorns great
03:05mass seats like this some of which could be 2 000 years old despite that they are now in serious
03:15trouble
03:17we've lost approximately 50 of corals in my lifetime
03:28corals are living creatures sensitive to rising temperatures when the sea is too warm for long periods
03:35the corals the corals get stressed and eject the microscopic algae living within them these normally
03:42act like solar panels providing most of the corals energy without them the corals turn white and starve
03:51it's known as bleaching
03:56this reef was hit really hard in the 2016 bleaching event 73 percent of corals died
04:09but there were survivors which must have some natural resilience to increased temperature that they're
04:16likely to pass on to their offspring that could be the key to long-term recovery here but there are
04:23so few of them that they might struggle to do it naturally
04:28okay we need to bring some back so to save this reef scientists are converging on the maldives
04:35to help these surviving corals breed more successfully
04:41corals start life as tiny floating larvae that settle on solid surfaces
04:48replicate themselves and build hard external skeletons
04:58the structure we see is a colony of thousands of genetically identical animals all living together
05:06but one of the drawbacks is once you settle you can't move so how do you go about breeding
05:15well that is one of the most exciting spectacles in nature
05:24on just a few nights a year triggered by a full moon
05:28corals release millions of eggs and sperm into the water in a process called spawning where they
05:35fertilize and become larval corals looking for a place to settle it's this miraculous spawning process
05:43that has become the life's work of one of the world's leading coral scientists
05:49the real challenge we face is we need to produce a lot more larvae than they currently
05:56be being naturally produced professor peter harrison is a coral expert who has spent 40 years studying
06:04australia's great barrier reef
06:08he pioneered a revolutionary technique known as coral ivf peter collects spawn from the wild
06:16artificially fertilizes it grows the larvae in specially designed protective pools and then
06:22when they're ready he releases them back onto the reef we target the release of those larvae onto
06:30degraded parts of the reef to kickstart the recovery watch the roof down down down the first stage in
06:37the process is to collect as much spawn as possible
06:43corals here only spawn a few times a year so we can't afford to miss it
06:53this multinational team are straight in the water carefully checking each surviving coral for colorful eggs
06:59a sign that spawning is close once replaced the fragments will repair themselves and regrow
07:10time is tight so we work long into the night
07:19below the waves it's an unearthly scene
07:23so corals contain a fluorescent protein that glows in our uv torchlight
07:31i feel like i've been transported into
07:35a scene from a 1970s star trek movie everything looks so surreal transformed into a whole different
07:45world of color i've never seen before
07:52the water is the water is a storm
07:53utterly dazzling
07:58beautiful as it is we're not here to take in the view
08:02there's work to be done
08:08this is kind of the magic part of what's been called coral ivf
08:15the team have identified during the daytime colonies of corals that are ready to spawn
08:25and they're tagged once they're ready they'll release their sexual cells and they're pretty much
08:32cast adrift and at the mercy of the elements and predators
08:39the damage to this reef means there are too few reproductive adult corals spread across a very large
08:45area so when they spawn there's little chance of the eggs meeting sperm and fertilizing
08:53the eggs and sperm and fertilizing the egg
08:54we have a way of increasing our odds
08:56using this cone a gummy trap which almost functions like a coral condom the bundles of egg and sperm
09:09will be released up into the pot on the top
09:13and that is going to be the raw material that helps us do the experiments
09:18that could be a massive part of the potential future of these reefs
09:26in the wild out of a million larvae maybe one will make it to adulthood
09:31on the great barrier reef peter's coral ivf has made larval survival up to a hundred times more likely
09:39and one advantage of the coral we're working on here is that any offspring that do survive
09:44could grow an impressive 10 centimeters a year and be sexually mature in just three
09:55now the traps are in place we could be waiting for days before the coral spawns
10:01you never know what they gotta do
10:07these branching corals that we're expecting to see spawn here they are quite variable in their timings and
10:13in some cases they wait until seven or eight nights after the full moon
10:16they're amongst the simplest animals on our planet but they're very complex and they keep us guessing
10:38suddenly on our first night there's a buzz of excitement word is that one of the colonies has started spawning
10:47i didn't expect it to spawn tonight but you can't predict girls apparently
10:53i'd come here expecting to be waiting for days maybe even weeks for this extraordinary spectacle to take
10:59place and right now one of the most special and important events in the whole natural world and
11:07certainly in our seas is happening beneath us right now
11:12it might be unexpectedly early but we're ready for it the coral condoms are in place and the nursery
11:19pools are ready to receive and protect the harvest
11:23but mixed with excitement is trepidation spawning in the maldives is different to
11:29that on the great barrier reef where peter usually works we don't know if these corals will spawn together
11:35or in great enough quantities for the experiment to continue
11:43it's happening across this brutalized reef the surviving adult corals are in full reproductive flow
11:52hundreds of thousands maybe millions of eggs and sperm are rising upwards the cells are full of fat so
12:00they float and this is key if the cells drifted at different levels in the sea they might not bump
12:06into
12:06each other and fertilize because they all rise to the surface mixing is much more likely
12:17already the gamete traps are working their magic
12:22inside you can see the precious sexual cells gathering at the top the potential future of this reef
12:31there are so few of each type of adult corals here that it's possible that none of the spawn would
12:36fertilize naturally there's so much riding on the success of peter's ivf attempt every stage completed
12:44it feels like an obstacle overcome well done congratulations what an amazing job
12:54spawn is being collected all across the reef tonight beautiful
13:01eggs and sperm from the same colony don't normally self-fertilize what we need to do is mix all the
13:09eggs and sperm from as many colonies as possible to get as much genetic diversity amongst the larvae
13:17on the damaged reef less than five percent of the spawn will be fertilized
13:23but in the containers the fertilization rate exceeds 95 percent cheers all around
13:31well done team
13:34it's been a long but successful night
13:42as the sun rises the now fertilized spawn is very cautiously transferred into protected pools
13:48where it will spend a few critical days developing
13:52but it's not all good news there's not as much spawn as we'd hoped for
13:57only enough to fill one of the nursery pools
14:01a stark reminder of how hard these reefs have been hit
14:08even the spawn that we have managed to collect is in danger a storm is approaching the island
14:17the spawn is floating on the sea surface and a downpour of fresh water can kill it before life
14:23has even had a chance if that happens the rescue project will be abandoned and we'll all be going home
14:30early it's going to be a sleepless night
14:42when you're doing coral conservation work on the open sea you've little control over the elements
14:48and for something as precious and specialized as coral spawning it would be really useful to be able
14:54to manage at least some of the conditions to maximize the chances of success and that's exactly what
15:00scientists are doing here in south london
15:04inside this unassuming warehouse is a groundbreaking research facility exploring novel ways to culture
15:12corals on land that could then be planted out in the ocean
15:17the scientists here were the first in the world to work out how to trigger coral spawning in captivity
15:24by mimicking some of the natural conditions they need we have been trying to get calls to breed
15:31to grow quicker survive better and really impart some of that knowledge on the rest of the world really
15:39in the wild mass spawning is a highly coordinated event
15:46with the corals relying on environmental signals like moonlight and temperature when all the queues are
15:53just right the ocean is filled with masses of released eggs and sperm how on earth do you begin to
16:02do that in a laboratory situation all of these types of things can be done in aquariums we managed
16:09to get corals to spawn in about eight months after putting all this in place so we knew 100 we're
16:14onto
16:14something jamie and the team have developed a ready-to-use coral spawning system that can be shipped
16:21around the world and can be controlled from a mobile phone oh it looks beautiful in here so this is
16:28a
16:28spawning system okay the reason why we're standing in something that looks like a photography blackout
16:34studio which means we can walk in and out of here and block any external light then we can slide
16:42these
16:42across and we can completely enclose the corals because we don't want to be coming in and out of
16:48here and putting light all over them and ruining that cue that they need to release their eggs and sperm
16:53okay and when it comes to moonlight how did you find out how you could replicate that moonlight here
16:58how strong it had to be we know that um full moon is about 0.1 lux okay it's a
17:04really small amount of
17:05light one lux is the amount of light you can detect from a single candle a meter away so naught
17:12point one
17:12lux is actually very faint i have a light meter and i went around waving it around in my garden
17:18at full moon
17:19you didn't i did and then trying to get the amount of light from an led to match that intensity
17:27of
17:27light but also the color of the moon as well once jamie had control of the timing and quality of
17:37the
17:38light he could manipulate the corals into spawning more often essentially speeding up coral reproduction
17:44and now the lab is growing a whole raft of healthy young corals at different stages of development
17:51in a series of nursery tanks what are your ambitions for this system going forward you imagine you go to
17:57a farm now vast greenhouses producing millions of plants to go into people's gardens you know this
18:05has the same potential to do that but to go on to reefs we want to see this on colossal
18:11scale producing
18:12millions of corals a year it won't be able to rebuild the reefs the way they were 50 years ago
18:22it will buy time until we can sort out the bigger issues that are facing our planet
18:29and it's working 70 spawning systems have already been shipped to coral restoration projects all around
18:36the world with new healthy corals being planted out onto reefs in the wild
18:49after a stormy night in the maldives it's a peaceful but tense morning
18:58our precious cargo is contained within those floating pontoons out there at this stage they're incredibly
19:05susceptible to any changes in the environment and last night we had torrential rain
19:16peter designed these nursery pools they allow the fertilized spawn to develop into larvae in natural
19:23conditions but the fine mesh prevents them being swept away or eaten the team are taking samples to
19:31check for signs of life to get a decent sample size we need to stir it up oh this is
19:39amazing it's like
19:40stirring the most expensive witch's cauldron in history exactly yeah right now to the untrained eye
19:47these larvae are almost invisible but peter and his team know what they're looking for there's one
19:54there's another 600 000 in here and you've got one yeah so some of those
20:00we try again come on up my lovelies
20:09oh yeah that's like it that's where they all are basically my stirring wasn't good enough yeah sorry
20:17you didn't stir the pot enough you gave me one job one job oh no there's literally many hundreds there
20:24probably probably a few thousand i was seriously worried that we might might just have had too much
20:28rain exactly i mean that's the whole thing every stage of this process like life for a coral naturally
20:36is full of risk because they're so tiny it's hard to think of the larvae as creatures but these are
20:44baby
20:49animals thankfully the majority of the larvae have survived which means we're still on track
20:59life for developing coral is filled with jeopardy if it's not warming seas or intense storms
21:05it's explosions of algal blooms not the vital microscopic algae that live inside the coral's tissues
21:14but larger species of algae that can smother and kill the coral
21:22i'm back at the coral spawning lab in london where jamie and the team have developed an ingenious
21:29system for breeding and growing thousands of corals in captivity but this conservation breakthrough
21:36is under threat from algae on a healthy reef algae are normally kept in check by herbivores like turtles
21:45and crabs but here in the lab with no grazing animals the algae can quickly grow out of control
21:52swamping the growing coral and killing as much as 95 percent of it now professor michael sweet has
22:00developed an ingenious solution that's entirely natural don't get spiked i would well don't spike me
22:09this is a an adult uh it's called a tuxedo urchin largely because of the the sort of shiny blue
22:15blue
22:15black coloration in between those those spines there are around 950 species of sea urchins in our oceans
22:27related to starfish they move across the sea floor on tubular feet that they also use to attach themselves
22:37to rocks
22:38so why harness the power of sea urchins when it came to your problem with the algae so urchins are
22:45common a garden they're found all all over the place really um and they're massive herbivores
22:50so they're they're really interesting and as all the herbivores they have a very uh big stomach for the
22:55the size of the animal so they can actually eat quite a lot
22:59and what they like to eat is algae in the wild urchins make light work of any algae they come
23:07across
23:08but that voracious appetite can sometimes be a problem if another species gets in their way
23:15if we put these guys in the tanks they'll bulldoze over our baby corals they're not targeting
23:20the corals they're doing it inadvertently as they're feeding exactly yeah
23:25the answer was to think small matching the size of the urchins to the coral with the two species
23:33growing in size together and it all comes down to perfect timing we know when the corals are going
23:40to be spawning and then we we need to target that same uh spawn date uh for our urchins but
23:47that's
23:47another huge challenge how do you time it with urchins it's actually relatively simple and we can
23:52hopefully show you uh how that works now we're going to give them a little spa treatment a nicer
23:56warmer bath a spa treatment exactly very scientific yeah as long as i don't have to give them a massage
24:04moving the urchins to warmer water triggers the release of their eggs and sperm just like corals
24:10in response to environmental cues like moonlight this guy looks quite quite happy in the sense that he's
24:16ready well he's waving his arms around how do you define a happy urchin ready to spawn i mean for
24:21goodness
24:22thing a male spawns first releasing its sperm in plumes from openings called gonopores there's a
24:31beautiful slow-moving cloud emanating from the top and then a female releases a cloud of eggs
24:39wafting them through the water you've got the eggs coming in the female now oh this is this is amazing
24:46this is just so amazing it's just a beautiful thing that's happening in a tiny little tank
24:50in an industrial estate in london once the corals and urchins have developed for several weeks
24:58it's time to introduce them to each other so these little babies are about two months old this is the
25:03holy grail this is uh exactly what we want actually on these plugs are baby corals so little corals which
25:08have just settled and now the urchins are doing their job cleaning up those those little bits of algae
25:13and making sure our corals can survive the babies will grow together and by eight months old the
25:23corals will be robust enough to survive the bigger urchins by adding baby urchins to their coral nurseries
25:30mike and the team have increased the number of corals surviving by more than 40 percent it's a smart
25:37solution inspired by what sea urchins do naturally in the wild but on the east coast of the u.s
25:43there's
25:44a problem the importance of sea urchins for coral survival has sadly been all too evident off the
25:51coast of florida recently in 2022 a disease wiped out huge numbers of urchins and in their absence algae
25:59smothered miles of coral on an already endangered reef
26:09scientists at moat marine laboratory in florida monitor the complex interactions on the reefs here
26:16looking for ways to restore the balance
26:21when we don't have enough herbivores on the reef eating the algae as it's growing it can get out of
26:27hand it can get overgrown and it can absolutely smother corals or even engage in kind of chemical
26:32warfare with corals and cause disease and and other things that really are a problem algae also cover
26:38up the space that little baby corals need to to settle and and make it so that they can't find
26:44a place
26:45to settle and and become a new coral colony so essentially there are no babies on reefs with too much
26:50algae
26:53the parasitic disease that killed 98 of florida's sea urchins currently has no cure so jason is looking
27:01for another native species to rescue the reefs from the overgrowing algae this is the caribbean king
27:08crab this is a very large male they're phenomenal herbivores they they eat algae and they eat algae
27:15that other stuff won't more algae than most of the urchins in the region as well jason believes that
27:20these crabs could be the answer in field tests we increase the density of these crabs by about a
27:26million fold from one per square kilometer to one per square meter on these small test reefs and over
27:33the course of one year they grazed the algae down by about 85 percent so we're very confident that these
27:39are these are excellent candidates for grazing on coral reefs but the number of crabs needed to make a real
27:46difference is mind-boggling just to meet the needs for seven of the reefs that we're working on we're
27:52going to need to produce 2.8 million crabs to create the army he needs jason has set up an
28:01enormous crab nursery
28:05here's a little baby right here you can see him on my finger now
28:14this little guy could be the size of that larger male in eight to ten months from now they're just
28:20a dream to work with once the shells measure three centimeters across the crabs are reef ready
28:27from hatching to release takes less than five months
28:34by carefully nurturing the mums and babies jason and the team aim to produce 250 000 juvenile crabs a
28:42year to release onto florida's reefs increasing the population density a million fold
28:49it might seem like a crazy strategy but jason believes the risks are low first they're a native
28:56species they naturally occur throughout the entire region and all we're doing is increasing their
29:02density to fill this functional void on the reefs the team will monitor the reef for any potential
29:09adverse effects but ultimately more crabs means more food for predators which can lead to more marine life
29:16and in turn a healthier coral reef it could just be a solution to this urgent problem
29:28in the maldives peter has used his coral ivf method to produce half a million coral larvae the first stage
29:36is complete peter's work has already helped damaged reefs come back to life elsewhere and the process
29:44has enormous global potential but there's always been one factor standing in his way we know that
29:52when we release tens of millions of larvae from these pools they disperse over the reef some of them get
29:57eaten by fish some of them drift off the reef and are never seen again the weak spot in the
30:04process is
30:05maximizing the settlement of those larvae on the target reef areas that we're really interested in restoring
30:14now for the first time ever peter is collaborating with a scientist who thinks he may have a solution
30:21i've been fascinated by how corals find a reef and choose where they're going to make their home
30:27professor steve simpson is a bioacoustics expert from bristol university in the uk
30:34in the last series i was with steve and his team when they made the breakthrough discovery that tiny
30:40larval coral with no ears and no brain are attracted to the sounds of a healthy reef hang on hold
30:48the
30:48phone you're talking about teeny tiny floating larvae hearing a reef absolutely in fact the team discovered
30:57that it's the sounds of the fish that are the trigger for coral to sink to the bottom and set
31:02up home
31:24and resuscitate this stricken reef
31:29what we need to do now is work out what sorts of
31:33reef song is most likely to start attracting larvae and if we can do that that could be incredibly
31:40important i mean it feels almost like a bit of a live aid for the coral reef so you're bob
31:45geldold
31:46the whole idea of a meeting of minds is incredibly exciting but i mean it sounds to me like all
31:57this
31:57stuff should take decades to figure out with experiments we've got like a week we are going
32:02to have to work at absolute rate of knots it's going to be exhilarating seat of our pants kind of
32:07science
32:08there's no time to lose our first challenge is how to record the sound of a healthy reef
32:15so we're traveling to a reef called hassan har that we know is full of life last year we tested
32:22a
32:23rudimentary prototype of giant swimming ears for just this moment and steve thinks he's finally
32:28cracked the design you remember how sometimes it was just kind of hanging a bit loose in the water
32:35we've now got it basically modeled on a underwater paper airplane okay so we've got this huge tail at
32:41the end i'm hoping that underwater this is going to glide silently there's only one way to find out
32:50it's time for the maiden voyage as we glide over the reef four giant ears pick up every groan shriek
33:12and
33:22whistle i'm retreating to a safe distance so as not to disturb the crucial recordings
33:31it's the most incredible thought that these fish around me right now have their own songs
33:40wow look at this
33:47clownfish have an amazing attitude they will protect their anemone home with their life if needs be
33:56and the sounds they make while they're doing it are just extraordinary did you hear that did you hear
34:01that as it came towards me unbelievable it just did it right then how's about that i have never heard
34:11that before but in all likelihood that's probably just because i haven't been listening properly
34:21that is the first time i've been given a telling off by a fish
34:31when we get back to the boat we're both thrilled by what we've seen and heard it's super super exciting
34:39i've seen the amount of life down there and the amount of diversity what a reef to take it to
34:43hey
34:43the first time it ever gets to record a reef and there's a reef like that beautiful
34:50soon there are hundreds of hours of data to crunch
34:55and now the pressure's on by the time the larvae are mature enough to start looking for somewhere to
35:01settle down steve needs to have selected the best sounds to attract them
35:14so here we've got a lot of fish activity here these are all nocturnal predators and they really use
35:30sound as a way of keeping the hunting pack together they're like a bunch of wolves out on the reef
35:36and they're howling to each other when they find potential food
35:43throughout the day different animals dominate the recordings
35:48one that i have to say i'm most excited about hearing is the dawn chorus right okay so the dawn
35:52chorus this is where you've got the emergence of all of the daytime fish
35:57so you've got this that's the kind of clownfish sounds that you tend to find
36:05very obvious just these differences in the in the soundscapes
36:09begging the question do coral respond differently to different recordings
36:17steve had planned to run multiple experiments with large numbers of larvae
36:22but because the damaged reef has produced far less spawn than expected steve has to limit his experiments
36:29so he's forced to test a hunch that busy is best steve thinks the recordings from the vibrant and
36:37buried healthy reef could be the most effective what we're hoping i guess is that those teeny tiny
36:44corals can tell the difference yeah we're going to put them into the choice chambers play these
36:50different sounds from one end or the other and then look to see the directional movement of our coral
36:56larvae i'm nervous i've got to tell you i'm very nervous
37:02and in the lab things go to plan steve thinks he's cracked it the larvae actively moved towards the sound
37:10of
37:10the busiest locations but now we have to test it again under natural conditions and that's no mean feat
37:20this has never been done before it's one of those moments where science is actually happening and to
37:27get in there and watch is really quite an honor
37:39okay so this is the moment of truth we have our cylinder suspended in the water
37:46the speaker underneath it with the sands coming up and peter has
37:52in his fingers just a few of those precious larvae to enter into the system
38:01okay we've got one steve can see one of the larvae inside quite clearly
38:08so now we're going to switch on the sounds of a healthy reef oh i can feel it and i
38:13can hear it
38:16i really can't quite believe we're doing this
38:21that one there's definitely dropped yeah what about that one peter you think that's dropping as well
38:27it went from here to here it went corkscrewing down it can see a home
38:39and they're all down to the bottom six of them so best case scenario was for these larvae to start
38:48to make their way down towards the sounds of the healthy reef which are coming from below and it very
38:55much seems that that is what's happening are you happy good news that is absolutely fantastic and now
39:07that we know that in principle this could work the next stage has to be released enormous amounts of
39:15these larvae and try and create something big and something special how exciting is that nice work
39:30natural reef restoration takes time but some of the options being explored could help to speed things up
39:42coral reefs are not exclusive to warm tropical waters like those found in the maldise here in the uk
39:48cold waters harbor incredible reefs too and they're just as important and precious
39:59a coral reef is built from the hard calcium carbonate skeletons of stony corals
40:06but a reef can also be made up of other marine species mussels and oysters tightly packed together
40:14and attached to old shells rocks and sandy material also creates solid reef structures providing homes for
40:22a variety of species including soft corals the uk has around 60 species of soft coral and as their name
40:31suggests they don't grow a hard exoskeleton most develop fleshy and flexible tissues like tentacles
40:40but just like their stony coral cousins their larvae need a stable surface to grow on
40:49around the world reef structures have been destroyed by activities like dredging and trawler fishing
41:00the resulting marine wastelands are no good for corals to settle on on an industrial estate in cornwall
41:09a band of resourceful school friends decided to come up with a novel solution to bring back their reefs
41:19so this is how we started our first ever mixer was 120 quid off ebay this is this is literally
41:25how
41:25you did your first one we literally went onto ebay bought a mixer for 120 quid and now it's gone
41:30from
41:30making a couple to thousands a day tom burbeck and his team are producing the building blocks of artificial
41:38reefs the cubes are made from 98 percent recycled materials they're carbon neutral and once lowered
41:46into place they start working immediately dispersing wave energy and providing solid structures for soft
41:53corals and other creatures to settle on carefully designed nooks and grooves on the cube surface
42:01will attract all sorts of marine life each needing their own very specific home
42:07tell me a little bit about how this all started for you so i started off spearfishing with my dad
42:11at sort of 10 11. um always used to catch fish it was great then about 15 16 you barely
42:18catch any fish
42:19you know nothing literally barren the actual rocky reef area that had been destroyed that won't regrow so
42:27we looked at trying to build something ourselves and between us we've sort of carved out the the product
42:32that we think we can use the team are already manufacturing the blocks on a large scale but
42:38because they can be produced using simple tools and materials they're perfect for restoration projects
42:44everywhere why have i got a tiny little what's this about and you got the big shovel this is really
42:50sexist it's really sexist i'm just saying no hang on to it because it's less work but
42:57okay we're pouring we're pouring right okay what we're really lucky to have in the southwest is an
43:03abundance of waste material like this from the clay bits only about 11 of what they actually dig
43:10is clay the rest is this okay so all that is is is basically a waste byproduct and we've got
43:15millions
43:15of tons of tons of this around all around the uk the demand for artificial reefs is growing in an
43:26effort
43:26to recover our coastal biodiversity and to protect our shores and infrastructure from erosion
43:35it's early morning in torbay and we are taking reef cubes out into the bay to help restore the reef
43:45getting these 500 kilogram cubes to the bottom of the sea is a team effort i've never operated a crane
43:53i just want to make that clear so you'll be looking at tom in the wheelhouse tom will give you
43:58the
43:58thumbs up when he's happy for you to lower it away when he's happy make sure sam's happy
44:03god sounds happy think about push the lever what if i'm not happy okay do it
44:14all right let's go down for a minute down on the wall down a bit stop stop stop the cable
44:20lowers
44:21the block to about 15 meters happy all right we'll put it away and then we can do the last
44:26bit it's
44:27on the bottom but is it where we wanted it to be we're launching a robotic camera sub to check
44:35on
44:36the final position of the cube there she is
44:45how long before life starts to make this their new home so the fish have already arrived on site
44:52so by the evening you'd expect crustaceans to move in in less than 24 hours crustaceans will move in yeah
44:59that's extraordinary so this is the before this is the before let's go now look at the after ones that
45:05have been down a couple years by providing these ready-made reef structures the team are bringing
45:12the bay back to life me and james did the um surveys pre-installation and it was just a barren
45:18sea bed
45:18it's sort of been decimated by industrial fishing but now we've actually created a reef here
45:22and so far we've identified over 160 species 160 species yeah 160 species the reef cubes not only
45:31provide a home for wildlife like lobsters and velvet swimming crabs they're also being used to protect
45:37offshore wind farms they could replace the millions of tons of carbon intensive granite and concrete
45:45currently used to protect the turbine structures and cables on the sea floor look at you you cannot take
45:52your eyes off the screen as a biologist is this just unbelievable to you amazing i came up uh
45:58towards the end of last year and i was saying it's the best uk dive i've ever done you know
46:02i've
46:02probably got about just under 3 000 dives thanks to the team's ingenuity marine life here is bouncing
46:12back remarkably quickly and the bay will be better protected from increasing weather extremes the need
46:19to protect our coasts from intensifying storm surges has become so urgent that in florida the department
46:25of defense is now funding a new generation of artificial reefs built to withstand even the mightiest of hurricanes
46:36florida's 360 mile barrier reef system has lost a staggering 98 percent of its coral cover
46:44and with it its ability to act as a crucial storm break
46:50in 2018 hurricane michael hit florida's coastline and powered straight through tyndall air force base
46:57causing five billion dollars worth of damage
47:04a healthy reef can absorb 97 of a wave's energy with florida's coastal infrastructure now so exposed to
47:14the full force of storms a team at the university of miami has been tasked with engineering rapid response
47:22reefs for use by the american military around the world so this is the only facility in the world that's
47:31able to generate category five hurricane force winds which is 150 miles an hour and that's higher
47:37and at that point really the damage is catastrophic this 23 meter long tank allows andrew and the team to
47:45test how man-made reefs can reduce storm damage if you look upstream of the two reef lines you can
47:52see
47:53that there's a lot of turbulence and stormy conditions but as you move over the first reef
47:56line and especially over the second you've got much calmer conditions like reef cubes the design has an
48:03artificial base to dissipate wave energy but here the innovation is a living top layer of larval corals
48:13each bioprinted into a sealed capsule what we are trying to do is to make sure that every single one
48:21of those baby corals has the best chance of surviving and the way we're doing that is to give each
48:25one of
48:25them a sort of a life support system that has all of the ingredients that they need in it for
48:29survival
48:31the capsules are made out of seaweed gel each containing a single coral larvae that was
48:38cultured in a spawning system provided by jamie and the team in london it also contains beneficial
48:45bacteria probiotics and millions of heat tolerant microalgae this is brand new we've never tried this
48:54before i mean in theory it should work but there's often a big gap between in theory and practice
48:59after the first critical few weeks the capsule will dissolve and the coral will continue to grow
49:05naturally a machine like this could produce thousands of coral containing capsules every hour
49:12and that's really where the key to the restoration of coral reefs is going to be in the future is
49:17scaling up making it cheap making it fast and making it easy
49:23those themes of accessibility and scalability are what make the project in the maldives so exciting
49:34the big day dawns when we release the ivf larvae onto the damaged reef
49:38and use steve's soundtrack to trick it into settling where it's needed most
49:46inside this bag are those hundreds of thousands of larvae that result of everyone's hard work and
49:53this next couple of hours is the crucial bit to find out if this is going to work
49:59it's worth remembering that in almost eight years this reef has struggled to recover naturally from the
50:04last bleaching event this is a mammoth task and starts with some old-fashioned muscle what we're planning
50:14to do now is to gently pull up the lava pool let all the sea water drain out of the
50:20fine mesh at the
50:21side and retain the lava very slowly it's taken almost an hour to get to this stage it's physically hard
50:29and no one wants to be the one responsible for dropping the net and releasing all that precious cargo
50:37perfect the smell is quite extraordinary like billingsgate fish market
50:50one bucket go team the larvae are safely on board and very much alive
50:57this brown sediment from the bottom of these black tub doesn't look like anything but it's
51:03rightly important and the result of so much hard graft not surprising everyone's celebrating like it's
51:10new year's eve
51:14in the wild most if not all of these larvae would already be dead but because of the intervention
51:19almost all have survived we've already massively cheated the odds
51:24rather than a smattering of larvae lost in a massive ocean we now have over half a million ready to
51:30be
51:30deployed in specific sites
51:36the corals are getting to a point where they need to settle and if they settle in the tubs
51:41they'll die we're in a race against time we are now so we've got to get these larvae onto the
51:46reef
51:49a mistake at this stage could be fatal to the larvae and the project
51:55we are so close this is the grand moment the hours of sweat and graft is coming to fruition right
52:02now
52:03we'll be giving those coral larvae the acoustic experience of being on one of the healthiest reefs
52:09in the atoll so as those larvae are seeking homes they're they're moving around the reef trying to
52:14work out where to settle they're going to think that they're on an absolute belter of a reef
52:20the speakers are put in place where they'll play continuously for 12 hours
52:29there's one critical process left we need to drop the larvae into precisely the right places
52:35and for that we need an ai remotely operated vehicle or rov so saria this remarkable bit of technology
52:46is very much your baby right absolutely this is brie that's her name brie is loaded up with larvae
52:55she's far more accurate and efficient at delivery than we humans can be
53:02she's trained to identify the types of places where coral larvae will survive best
53:07and artificial intelligence allows her to learn as she goes what is it that the camera and the ai is
53:15going to actually be looking for so it's looking for nice like rocky solid substrates um and it turns
53:24off when it sees algae um on the substrate because if the coral lands there um they will just eventually
53:31die it's a very fine estate agent looking for the for the very best of neighborhoods
53:38the rov can cover huge areas of reef targeting the perfect spots and never wasting larvae
53:52well this is such a complex operation so many moving parts and trying to communicate when half of
53:57you are underwater is just about impossible but it looks like somehow it's all coming together
54:06oh that's brilliant you see how all the fish you see how all the fish just gathered
54:12round as soon as the sound system turned up so they know it's a party
54:18at last all of peter's larvae is out in the ocean hopefully spiraling downwards towards steve's fish
54:25songs well guys that was a chaotic few hours proper science in action wasn't it i can't believe we've
54:32actually pulled off that plan for the day i think we're really onto something
54:39peter and steve are jubilant we know peter's coral ivf works and he and the team have successfully reared
54:47and released over half a million larvae here we know steve's acoustic method works he's controlled
54:55larval settlement in lab experiments and now we've seen it work in the ocean under real conditions
55:03the results we're hoping for new corals growing on the reef won't be visible for many months but as a
55:09result of this extraordinary experience peter and steve are confident that their hybrid method could be
55:16the key to boost reef recovery not just here but on damaged reefs around the world this new technique
55:24couldn't have come at a better time we're running out of corals on the planet they're not replacing
55:31themselves naturally faster enough they don't have time to recover before the next major bleaching
55:37event or the next major storm event i think in the short term this is such a crucial part of
55:43the
55:43challenge that we find all of these interventions that allow us as soon as we've got a problem to
55:48get in and try to repair some of the damage peter and steve are taking their groundbreaking scalable and
55:59speedy restoration method and they're running as fast and as far as they can with it
56:09in eight months australia's great barrier reef will spawn
56:14peter and steve and the coral rescue team will be there ready and waiting in the meantime we've
56:23got to be tackling climate change this is buying us time it's kind of firefighting while we try and
56:28work out how we get to that much more harmonious relationship with the planet which i hope will be
56:34in this century i really do without this collaborative rescue effort the areas of this reef that have lain
56:41been dead and crumbling for the last eight years may have remained silent and still now there could
56:49be thousands of new corals growing on that reef we know that corals attract fish and in turn fish will
56:58call more corals in now nature takes over
57:07we've witnessed what becomes possible when we share expertise and work together for a common goal
57:15we'll be back in years to come to check on the progress of this reef and the ongoing work of
57:23these
57:23extraordinary scientists
57:32tackling the big environmental issues of our time and meeting the clever folk with a plan
57:36listen to rare earth now on sounds and i think you may need a coat from frozen seas to snowy
57:42mountains
57:42discover the cold conquering power of mammals next
57:47you
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