Coral

Key West commissioners postponed renewing a contract with the Colllege of the Florida Keys that linked cruise ships to increased turbidity in the island's shallow port.

The study looked at damaging turbidity, which can harm coral and seagrass, and found levels connected to cruise ships equal to hurricanes.

Amid the spread of misinformation falsely claiming the government controls the weather, one falsehood in particular stood out in South Florida. Posts on TikTok and X the weekend before Milton hit falsely claim a University of Alaska lab had "activated" a site in the Florida Keys.

Left to nature, coral’s mating prospects are somewhat restricted by their inability to walk, fly or swipe Tinder to find a mate.

"By freezing these larvae, they can be held for literally hundreds of years," said Keri O'Neil with the Florida Aquarium.

Despite the dedicated efforts of scientists, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced this week that no wild elkhorn — a species valued for its tough wave-shredding antlers and listed as an endangered species — could be found south of the Upper Keys.

North America’s only barrier reef is withering from heat and disease. Can efforts to preserve and propagate the corals at land-based facilities save them?

NOAA awarded South Florida scientists up to $16 million to try to breed and replant about 100,000 coral on ailing reefs using survivors of last summer's heat wave. Researchers say climate change is the biggest threat to coral’s survival because it’s simply making water too hot too fast.

After last year's lethal marine heat wave, coral scientists are looking at ways to help coral survive another potential round of dangerous bleaching.

With rising water temperatures threatening Florida’s coral reefs, scientists have worked to relocate the animals in order to save them. But one rescue operation run in part by Disney and Sea World in Orlando has been doing this for years - even before the latest bout of extreme heat.

Climate change is heating oceans faster than the world's coral reefs can handle. So scientists are breeding corals that can withstand hotter temperatures – but only to a point.

Coral rescued off the Florida reef ahead of an outbreak of lethal stony coral disease and stashed in aquariums and zoos are growing and making babies.