Dubbo is continuing to play an important role in the preservation of the Great Barrier Reef with more than 21 different coral species stored at Taronga Western Plains Zoo.
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Senior reproductive biologist Rebecca Hobbs has been in Townsville to collect coral samples at this year’s main spawning event. Dr Hobbs said as well as banking sperm from as many different species as possible – which are stored at the Taronga CryoDiversity Bank in Dubbo – this year, the team was also looking at cross-fertilisation using frozen sperm.
It’s the first time the frozen sperm has been used to do fertilisation crosses between the same species from different regions of the reef.
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While the data is still being analysed, Dr Hobbs said it was looking very promising.
“If corals continue to be bleached year after year it affects their ability to reproduce. We’re seeing some of the sperm being reproduced of lesser quality,” she said.
“If it continues to happen year after year the ability of those corals to recover and successfully breed will be impacted, which is why it's important to have a bank like this which is going to have samples from pre-bleaching events that will contain genetics from individuals from a very broad spectrum.”
If it continues to happen year after year the ability of those corals to recover and successfully breed will be impacted...
- Rebecca Hobbs
The work is in collaboration with the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute.
Dr Hobbs said people were generally shocked when they heard about Dubbo’s gene bank.
“It’s usually ‘why on Earth is it so far from the water basically in the middle of the dessert?’ And the reason for that is we’re only one of two gene banks that do this in the whole of the country, and the other one is relatively new,” she said.
The next step is to grow the conservation project.
Dr Hobbs said at the moment, there were only enough people involved to collected samples from one place on the Great Barrier Reef each year. More people would allow for more genetic material to be collected from a broader range of areas, including other reefs.
The samples collected from the Great Barrier Reef can remain frozen for hundreds of years. They will be critical to support the structure and future of Australia’s reefs, because if needed, they could be used to restore and potentially reseed reefs.
Orlander Ruming
Deputy editor at the Daily Liberal, covering council, politics, human interest stories, community news and everything in between.
Deputy editor at the Daily Liberal, covering council, politics, human interest stories, community news and everything in between.
