coral reefs

Field researchers at the Coral Restoration Lab rushed from the ocean, carrying plastic crates filled with elkhorn corals. They join a wave of rescue missions on Florida’s coast that are removing corals from the sea, in hopes that they can give this vital form of marine life a fighting chance this blistering summer.

Florida's coral reef has been beset by warming seas and rampaging disease. Now, one study has found coral resistant to one of the deadliest diseases ever recorded.

Divers with a global nonprofit network of Black ocean scientists and marine enthusiasts, joined a University of Miami's program to plant nursery-grown corals along the Florida Reef Tract as it experiences a prolonged heat wave. But the work is also about Black representation in marine science.

It’s official: El Niño is back. By late fall 2026, forecast models give a 2-in-3 chance of a strong-to-very strong El Niño affecting the weather, climate and ocean temperatures across the planet. I’m a climate scientist who studies the oceans. With an El Niño expected to strengthen through the summer and fall, water temperatures will heat up even more. It’s time to start preparing.

The crustaceans eat algae which would otherwise block the needed sunlight, giving the corals space to grow and settle.

Rather than sheer number, scientists looked at conch behavior to devise what they say is a more efficient way to protect disappearing herds of reproducing conch.

The plan was part of an executive order issued in 2023 that set an ambitious timeline to build a coral pipeline to restore the ailing reef. Now labs are scrambling to shuffle funding or risk losing staff.

Scientists warn that a proposed expansion of Port Everglades could cause unprecedented damage to corals in the U.S., including some of the only remaining endangered staghorn corals that survived a record-breaking heat wave.

South Florida is home to the only barrier reef in the continental United States. But does it matter to people on land that the corals, like anywhere else in the world, are bleaching?

The study to determine what impact a planned port dredge will have on nearby coral confirmed millions of coral, including one of the largest stands of wild staghorn coral left on the reef.

The event, part of the recurring Climate Café Series, is titled “The Future of Florida’s Coral Reef: New Approaches for Rebuilding Resilience” and will take place on Wednesday, Oct. 29. The discussion will be moderated by veteran journalist Jenny Staletovich, WLRN's Environment Editor.

From Oct. 20 to Oct. 27, just under two dozen car-shaped artificial reefs will be lowered off the coast of South Beach, to create an underwater sculpture park and an artificial reef that organizers called the “first of its kind.”