Study shows bleached coral recovers when it touches a healthy neighbour
14 October 2026
Scientists have restored bleached coral in a laboratory by placing it in contact with a healthy fragment, according to findings reported in Science Advances on 14 October 2026.
Bleaching occurs when rising sea temperatures stress corals and they expel the symbiotic algae known as Symbiodiniaceae that give them their colour and most of their nutrients.
Danny Collins, then a PhD student at Stanford University, prepared ten pairs of coral fragments from the same animal, Pocillopora damicornis.
Five pairs were set up so that their fragments touched and five were separated by a few millimetres.
In the touching pairs, the bleached coral recovered within eight weeks, with the symbiont population doubling every four days by week two.
Stephen Palumbi at Hopkins Marine Station first noticed the effect, and co-author Fiorenza Micheli of Stanford's Center for Ocean Solutions said the result may inspire scalable solutions.
In plain words
Symbiodiniaceae Symbiodiniaceae — The family of photosynthetic algae that live inside coral tissues and supply most of their nutrients.
Coral bleaching Coral bleaching — The loss of symbiotic algae from coral tissue under heat stress, turning the coral white.