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  • WHERE I WORK

Breeding heat-tolerant corals to save the Great Barrier Reef

Kate Quigley is part of an Australian collaboration that aims to create corals that can survive warming ocean waters.
  1. James Mitchell Crow

    1. James Mitchell Crow is a freelance science writer in Melbourne, Australia.

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Kate Quigley is bathed in red light as she and people behind shine red torches into water tanks filled with coral specimens

Kate Quigley is a research scientist at the Australian Institute of Marine Science outside Townsville, Queensland. Credit: Juergen Freund

Every October or November, over a few specific nights, corals in the Great Barrier Reef release many millions of eggs and sperm into the waters off Queensland, Australia, during a mass spawning event. My research brings this action indoors to Australia’s national sea simulator. In this photo, taken in November 2019, I am eagerly peering into the tank because the big dance is about to happen. We use red light to watch the spawning, because it doesn’t disturb the coral.

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Nature 595, 142 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-01753-x

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