Resumen de Heat-tolerant genes may help corals survive
Coral reefs have a bit of fight in them. Some corals that are able to withstand rising temperatures can pass the trait on to offspring through their genes. Warmer waters bleach corals, stripping away the photosynthetic microbes that live in their tissues and killing the coral--a factor in the bleak predictions that most reefs might disappear this century. The warm water El Nino event of 1997-98 wiped out 15 percent of the worlds shallow reefs in one shot. The 2009-10 event also saw a round of bleaching, though to a lesser extent. Now, just five years later, an ongoing El Nina has swept across the equatorial Pacific
