20 Emma Camp: Vital reefs

[00:00:04] I'm Catherine Polcz and this is Plant Kingdom. Plant Kingdom is a conversation series about awe and sublime in nature and environment, featuring scientists, artists, researchers and writers. Today's conversation is with coral reef expert Dr. Emma Camp. From her lab at the University of Phenology, Sydney, Emma looks at how science can help buy time for Australia's coral reefs.

[00:00:26] With a practice founded in conservation and community collaboration, we spoke about the world of coral, their behavior, how to restore reef ecosystems, and her work in identifying naturally heat tolerant species and phenotypes. Here's our conversation. Thank you, Emma, so much for chatting today. Really looking forward to getting into all things coral with you.

[00:00:52] And so you're from England, a ways away from the tropics as we think of them. I guess, can you tell us a bit about your first experience with corals and kind of when did you know that this would be the focus of your life's work? Dr. Sharon Robinson So when I was about four, I drew like a really terrible picture, four or five, like kindy, that I wanted to be a marine biologist.

[00:01:15] So I don't think I knew what a marine biologist actually did. And I definitely didn't know about coral at that time, but I always had this weird just drive and passion for the ocean. And so growing up, my family likes to travel and I was really lucky that I was able to go to some amazing places. And one of them was over in the Caribbean. And so for me, I still remember seeing a coral reef for the first time with my dad.

[00:01:40] We put on a mask and a snorkel. We were in the Bahamas. And I remember looking above the water and, you know, it's just a mirror reflection of the sky. I couldn't see anything. And then I put my head under and this is underwater city under there with all of this color and fish and life. And I'm like, wow, what is this system? So that for me was definitely when I fell in love with coral.

[00:02:01] Yeah, beautiful description of the first dive. I've talked to another Nicole Yamase, a marine biologist looking at seaweeds, but she's described the ocean as a mirror too. And kind of how surreal that experience of diving is. And for you, I guess it sounds like it, but was having a conservation angle like always going to be part of your research? Or is that a big influence on your thinking?

[00:02:29] Yeah, no, absolutely. For me, it's always been science and gaining new knowledge is amazing. It's fantastic. And it's something that inquiring nature and our ability to ask questions is something very innate to humans. But it has always been how can the science do good? There's so many challenging problems that we face in the world. And so for me, science has got this really unique capacity to create new solutions.

[00:02:56] And that has always been something that's driven me and motivated me with the science. And so whenever I've looked at projects, even when I started out in my science career, it was always what is a problem that the science can help address? Yeah, it really, I guess the love and the curiosity and the inquiry draws you in. And then it's what can you do for it? What do you how can you service? How can you serve it? Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely.

[00:03:25] And maybe maybe a big question, you touched on it a little bit already, but for many of us here in Australia, wherever the ocean is, there's a real strong affinity and personal relationship that many of us have with the ocean, whether it be spiritually, recreationally. Yes. I also love hearing how scientists relate to the systems that they know so intimately and have, you know, hours of quiet experience and reflection with.

[00:03:55] Before we zone in on on corals, can you talk a bit about your relationship with the with the ocean? Yeah, look, for me, it's somewhere that's very therapeutic. It's very calming. It's a place to recharge. You know, I feel like we're so, you know, our health and well being is so inextricably linked to the health and well being of the ocean.

[00:04:19] And so for me, just being immersed in the ocean in nature, just gives you that chance to breathe to recharge. It's a bonus that if you've got your head under the water, you can't hear anything. So nobody, you know, my kids can't be asking me questions like, you know, no one's asking me a work question. It's just the chance to fleetingly switch off and just be present and focus on what's around you.

[00:04:42] And for me, also knowing that you don't know what you're going to see, that level of, you know, you never know what what's going to come in view or that you're going to see on the sand or on the reef. And so there's an element of excitement as well. So that really, yeah, helps me recharge, switch off and kind of reconnects with my purpose as well. And now we're going to jump into corals.

[00:05:05] And I guess I'd like to just take some some time to really understand coral and the wonders and difference of their lives in the world they inhabit and how they experience it. They're very they probably couldn't be more unlike us or how we think of ourselves and animals. So we need to stretch our brains a bit, but you won't have to stretch your brain because you spend a lot of time thinking about them.

[00:05:31] But can you remind us like when we say coral, what do we what makes a coral a coral? What is coral? Yeah, it's a great question. And I get asked this a lot. And I think for a lot of people, they don't realize that they're they're alive, that they're actually an animal. Right. So, you know, yes, they're this hard structure. But actually, the coral itself, yeah, is an animal.

[00:05:55] But it has this unique partnership with some microscopic algae, which provide a lot of the resources for the coral, a lot of its food through photosynthesis. So we call it a holobion, which basically means whole biology. So you have the animal, which is if you imagine is like the factory, the building. You've got the algae, which is like the solar panels providing a lot of energy, taking light in, photosynthesizing, providing resources.

[00:06:20] But then there are things like bacteria and viruses and other microorganisms that like the workers, they help move resources around in the format that the coral needs. And so that makes one coral. And then you have lots of different species of coral, different shapes, sizes that forms a coral reef that we're able to see from space if we think about the Great Barrier Reef. But then if we go the other way, when we think of a coral, they're actually colonial. So they're made up of lots of individual polyps.

[00:06:47] These polyps are connected to one another and closely related to jellyfish. So, yeah, they're really quite complex organisms, which I think people often find amazing because they look quite simple when you look at them. But they're really quite complex. But they form this really intricate system.

[00:07:06] And when we think about coral reefs support over 25% of marine life, it's really amazing that this partnership between the algae and the coral has adapted and has become so specialized that they can create this high nutrient environment in really a very nutrient poor ocean. So it's really a really special relationship that creates this really rainforest in the sea. Just all of that, isn't it?

[00:07:33] Yeah, I think the symbiosis is really beautiful to think about and it feels so unique. Yeah. And just the delicate balance and how things have adapted and the partnerships and how certain species and certain algae work better together than others. And so there is this just really synergistic relationships that have evolved over time to work really well in the conditions that they've found. And it's from a science perspective, really fascinating.

[00:08:04] And and with the colonial animals is the polyp an animal is the structure the like what is the unit of animal? Yeah. So we when we think about kind of the core as a whole, we think of is a colonial organism. So all of all of that in one individual that we see, we think of as the as the animal. But I guess each one of those polyps is is unique in and of itself.

[00:08:32] And it starts off as an individual polyp that over time divides and you get more and more basically a bigger coral over time. And so you think about some of the corals that can be really old and they have like lots of different polyps and some of them can be over 100 years difference in age because they've divided over time.

[00:08:52] So there's a lot of difference that can occur, you know, even though they've started from the same individual and, you know, genetically should be the same or at least very similar. And but I guess what the coral does is the coral actually there's a sort of a tissue layer over the top of the structure that we think of when we think of a coral reef. So a coral basically is able to take resources in from the environment. It uses the energy from photosynthesis, from the algae, and it builds a calcium carbonate structure.

[00:09:22] So it basically deposits a tough skeleton that forms the foundation of the reef and that reef builds up over time. So if a coral dies, then that platform is there for other coral or other marine life to build upon. So again, there's underneath, I guess, the living tissue that we see and that's identified by the colors on those yellows and golds and browns.

[00:09:43] Underneath that tissue is a hard rock structure, which is the calcium carbonate that the reef deposits or the coral deposits to form the reef. Yeah, that's amazing. So a large coral, it's growing on the bodies of its predecessors in place. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, basically.

[00:10:06] Yeah. So, I mean, it's possible that it's, you know, just some rock that's there, but most of the time it will be on sort of the skeleton or the old reef that was there previously. Yeah. And they are in the same phylum. Tell me if I, if I say it right, they're in Nidaria. Nidaria. Yeah. Nidaria. Nidarians. And that's in the same grouping as jellyfish and then other sessile organisms like hydrosoans and sea anemones.

[00:10:36] How, how ancient are they? So some of the fossil records date some of the prehistoric corals back to about 450 million years ago. Some of the oldest fossil records that are, that exist, those are no longer found. So those specific type of corals are extinct, but there's nonetheless related to the corals that we have now.

[00:11:01] Yeah. And if you zoomed into a coral polyp, you would actually see sort of little tentacles coming out and there's a mouth in the middle. And if you saw that outside of its calcium carbonate skeleton and you kind of flipped it upside down, it would look really similar to a jellyfish. So when you see it in that sort of, in that sort of image, you can see how you're like, oh yeah, actually I can see how evolutionarily there, you know, there's a connection there.

[00:11:26] Yeah, that's helpful to picture. I think early fish are something like 380 million years old or really old. It's just really beautiful to think about how old that relationship is. So they've been evolving, doing their thing in the ocean, you know, for a few hundred million years today. Like what's a, what's a snapshot of today? Like how diverse are corals across the world?

[00:11:54] Honestly, we're still learning. Right. So whenever everybody asks this question, I'm like, there's the short answer and there's the long answer. So I guess the short answer is we know there's a couple of thousand species of coral now. If we go to say the Caribbean, it's more like a couple of hundred, like there's definitely geographic differences in the diversity of corals.

[00:12:16] Like we're close to the Coral Triangle, which is a diversity hotspot over in the Indonesian region. So there is a lot of coral species. But as we advance genetic technology, a lot of corals that historically we thought were one species, we're realizing are actually different species and that we just needed the genetic tools to actually show us that although they look quite similar,

[00:12:43] they're actually genetically distinct, which is why I say we probably, we probably are underestimating a lot of the diversity that exists. And I guess for context, we've done some work recently up in the Northern Territory and through a pretty short sampling campaign, we think that we've got kind of four to eight new coral species minimum that have been found during that time.

[00:13:07] So again, it is, we really are kind of scratching the surface of the biodiversity that exists on our reef systems. Yeah, incredible. I love those organisms in corners of biology that really challenge like how we think about biodiversity species, like how we're really determined to see and understand nature. Interesting. Yes.

[00:13:33] Well, now let's, let's talk about the Great Barrier Reef. And also let's remind ourselves what we're talking about when we talk about the reef, right? It's, it's not, it's, it's not one, one thing in one place, right? It spans like 400 squared kilometers, something like that. It's just the largest reef ecosystem in the world. Take us, take us there.

[00:13:58] I guess what, from your perspective is kind of unique or precious about the Great Barrier Reef? So look, this is such an important point to be made because I hear this all the time. Well, what is the state of the Great Barrier Reef? You know, we heard it was dead. We heard it was alive. We heard it was dying. We heard it was growing. What's going on? And it's because it's not one reef, exactly as you articulated. It's this array of different reefs that make up this reef complex that so large, we can see it from space.

[00:14:27] And so for me, I think what's so unique about it is just the sheer size and proximity to land in that is somewhere that people can get to. So I think that's how it's become such an Australian icon. The historical knowledge, the traditional owner history and engagement with the reef, you know, is so pronounced here that there's that legacy that I think is ingrained, obviously, into Australia.

[00:14:53] And I think just the fact that Australia has got the tourism industries, it's got the science communities, it's got the traditional owners that are so focused and sort of make it accessible for people. It's just contributed to it becoming such a feature of Australia. I guess from a science perspective, for me, it's the fact that it spans such a geographic distance. As you noted, you get entirely different abiotic conditions.

[00:15:20] So things like temperature, light, salinity are really variable across both depth, across the latitude and longitude that the reef covers. And so with that becomes immense biodiversity, different species migration that you're going to get thinking of things like whales and turtles and all of the life that actually exists on the reef. And so for me, it was always a dream to visit the Great Barrier Reef. For me as a marine biologist and a coral scientist, it was the reef that I wanted to visit.

[00:15:49] And I think it's just all of those features together that make it so special and such an amazing ecosystem. Hmm. Yeah. Was it a bit of like a homecoming to get to see it for the first time? What was kind of your first impression of it or when did you first get to to dive? Yeah. So I was able to see the reef. I came over with my dad before I moved here.

[00:16:17] I am. I came over on a very brief trip and I was able to do like a couple of days on the reef. So I was able to see the reef in 2015 before two really significant stress events occurred. So that was amazing to see the reef in the sites that I was at kind of pre any real significant impact. And it was just everything that, you know, all of the colors, all of the coral diversity. I'd spent my time previously mainly in the Caribbean.

[00:16:45] So I had seen low coral diversity and low coral cover. So to come here and see such diversity and just coral as far as I could see was like mind blowing and just really exciting. I moved to Australia in 2016, right? Really, as we had the 2016 and 2017 marine heat waves and it led to the first documented back to back coral bleaching events.

[00:17:09] So when we say that a bleaching event, basically what's happened is that there's been a stress, typically temperature, that causes the algae that we talked about being really crucial to the coral actually starting to become toxic and the coral expels them. The coral turns white because it's lost the algae that provides some of the color. And the coral will starve unless the temperature stress goes down and it can retake up the algae.

[00:17:34] And so when the coral is bleached, it's not dead, but it can't stay in that state for a long period. And unfortunately, in 2016 and 2017, there were some significant heat wave events that impacted a lot of the reef and resulted in significant mortality. So I guess I got here at a point where it was hard because there were these impacts, but also they were variable and they were spread out. And so it was also realizing, OK, this is really a reality.

[00:18:04] Like we are seeing the impacts of climate change. We're going to continue to see the impacts of climate change. But also we are seeing parts of the reef that is showing immense resilience. And it was kind of a Kickstarter into my Australian research just to be like, OK, how can I contribute? Like, how can I bring the skills over that I have to help answer questions? It's not something that Emma Campalone is going to be able to do. So who are the other people that are working in this?

[00:18:31] How do my skill sets align and how can I support the efforts? So, yeah, it was it was an interesting time to come and see the reef for the first time. But also it was the time that it was. And I guess it was a good time to at least say, OK, it isn't something for the future. It's for now. So what is the science needed?

[00:18:53] And going back to the earlier points we were talking about is it reaffirmed that science to answer questions is great. But with the reef visibly being impacted by climate change now, the science needs to translate to solutions. And so it kind of really brought to the forefront that point and trying to work out what the landscape was in Australia to be able to do that. Who are the players that needed to be involved?

[00:19:22] And how could I position my science to best contribute to that effort that was going to need to happen and was happening? Yeah, it really informed what you did, what you did next or how you want to set up your your lab, your research, your focus here. And I guess directly coming out of that is the start of the coral nurture programs. Is that right? Can you can you introduce coral nurture and what are the main kind of programs and initiatives?

[00:19:49] Yeah. So in 2017, I got some funding from National Geographic and some explorer with them to do an exploration along the reef to kind of look for resilient corals. So corals that had higher tolerance to stress to see how they could be part of the toolbox of conservation strategies for the reef into the future.

[00:20:13] And through that process, I was trying to find a boat and, you know, things change as they always do when you're trying to research and and fortuitously, you know, things I'm a firm believer things happen for a reason. And I crossed paths with this amazing couple, John and Jenny Edmondson, that owned Wavelength Reef Cruises up on in Port Douglas. And they said, we've got a boat. We'll take you out. Like, so I was on the boat with them for a week with a colleague.

[00:20:43] And through that discussion and being on the boat, it became really apparent that the tourism industry felt sort of disconnected from the science and that, you know, they wanted to be part of the solutions. But particularly in the communications after the 2016, 2017 event, there was feeling that maybe science was overstating the impacts and science thinking that tourism was understating the impacts.

[00:21:08] And for me, it was like I just arrived and I'm like all my career I've worked with the tourism industry because that's how I've been able to access my sites and how I've asked questions and how I've learned. And so I just thought and my colleague that was with me, look, this is a really great opportunity for us to work collaboratively with one of the industries that's on the reef to see how they can become part of the solution and really be stewards for their sites.

[00:21:35] They already undertook surveys and removed crown of thorns and drip palace. They already were playing a role. Yeah, but it wasn't it wasn't involving restoration. And so we had a had a sort of a discussion of what could something look like. And the key was how do we develop the science and the tools that can be implemented by tourism operators within their regular operations to bring down costs and maximise impacts at their site.

[00:22:04] But also to engage with the traditional owners of the countries where these sites were to ensure that they supported and were interested, but also to then work with ranger groups that have their own boats and have their own interest in those sites to also see how we could collaboratively engage with them as well.

[00:22:25] And so through that, Coral Nurture Programme was born and it's really just been a it's been a platform for the science to translate into impact. So it's the science programme linked with my team. But it's really the science is driven by the questions and the sites of the people on the ground and they support the collection.

[00:22:46] And ultimately, the goal is that the science provides tools and solutions that can help boost coral resilience through planting and growing more corals at key sites on the reef. So in a nutshell, what we do is we collect corals that are naturally broken or some key corals from the environment. It's a bit like taking a plant clipping and you can take a plant clipping, sorry, a coral clipping. You can grow them in nurseries.

[00:23:14] So like floating frames or frames on the ground, they grow very quickly and then you can replant them back onto the reef or you can get them to a size where they're sexually active and they'll produce their own larvae that go into the water column and then can settle and help support recovery. And so we've asked lots of scientific questions about which corals we should target. How do we grow them? How does things like the microbiome change? How does the materials that we use impact how they grow?

[00:23:44] How do we reattach the corals? What's the cost effectiveness? What is the social implications of doing this? So we're really trying to evaluate the process to come up with tools that can be used not just on the Great Barrier, but by other practitioners around the world that are undertaking restoration, because we see globally a lot of the activities that are being undertaken are by community groups trying to conserve and preserve their local reef systems.

[00:24:11] Yeah, it just makes me go back to how you even introduced the reef to it was many different aspects to what it is, right? It is an organism, a habitat, it's cultural, it's economic, it's tourism. There's many different, it's many different things to many different people, animals, perspectives.

[00:24:33] And no doubt those bleaching events must have many different people would have been feeling that pain and helplessness of those events, right? Not just scientists. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, immensely so, yes. And how, like, how do you plant coral back in the wild? How do you even, what does that look like? Yeah. It's a great question. And yeah, and look, it's a great question. And it's one that we're still, you know, we're still evolving.

[00:25:03] So you can, there's lots of ways to attach a coral. And one of the things that we did with Coral Nurch Programme was that we had to consider the health and safety risk of people because we wanted to do this on tourism charters. And not that the tourists would be involved, that the Coral Nurch Programme tourism staff would be doing the activities.

[00:25:24] But nonetheless, you can't have, say, hazardous chemicals or things going on on the boat when you've got people there that are not trained and haven't seen risk assessments and et cetera. So we ended up developing a clip led by John Edmondson at Waveland, basically that attaches coral. So we hammer it in. It's got a clip on it. We put the coral underneath. The coral is fixed in place. It grows over the clip.

[00:25:52] And then the clip erodes over time without impacting the coral. So that's kind of the primary way we've used it. And we have used some non-toxic glues and cements over time just to trial them. You know, that's been a big thing for us is as we're developing these methods, we also want to report failures, right? Because we are learning and we need to learn very quickly as a community. And so having that transparency, if we do something, it doesn't work.

[00:26:17] We need to ensure that we're reporting that so that others can learn from that and not make the same mistakes. And so the clips we can find with a metal, underwater metal detector. So if we want to do surveys, we can go around with our little metal detector and be like, that's a planted coral. That's not because after a while it can be really hard to tell where they are. And so, yeah, that's been one way. And I guess the fact that they are discrete was also really important from a tourism perspective,

[00:26:43] because whilst from a biological perspective, traits of, you know, being diverse and supporting fish communities is really important. The aesthetics is another trait that's obviously important as well. Yeah. So I picture them kind of like dissolving stitches a bit for the glue. Yeah, that's a good summary. And then, yeah, we have like the frames where they grow, like these floating metal structures with the corals attached to them,

[00:27:13] which always look as well, like when you kind of come up to the site and you can see them floating in the distance, like it's because they're just over the sand. It's always really kind of fun to see them. You're like, oh, look, there they are in there. The corals are on there and they've sort of made their own little ecosystem because the fish are all around them, which is also really helpful because the fish help clean the nurseries. So we don't have to do that. So, yeah, it's a special part of the work that we do.

[00:27:41] But it's also, you know, it's one tool. It's still very manual. You know, it's providing some contribution, but we're under no illusion that it's a tool in the toolbox. The biggest tool we have is fundamentally to tackle climate change. If the oceans continue to warm, corals are really going to be facing an unprecedented challenge to survive that

[00:28:05] and the associated cyclones and instability that's going to come in the oceans with intensifying climate change. Yeah. Yeah, it's hard. It's a lot to hold in your mind, right? Or if you're just learning about it, like because the solutions feel so exciting and optimistic. Yeah, the greater context is ending fossil fuels. Yeah, it is.

[00:28:30] And, you know, like the way that I like to describe it, right, is that they're buying time for us. You know, the reality is that we are experiencing climate change. We've got these these ongoing challenges that we're facing. And if we're going to ensure a future for reefs, we fundamentally have to tackle climate change. But even if we do that today, there's going to be a decade or more of time where the oceans have to re-equilibriate. And that's time that not all reefs are going to have.

[00:28:58] And so the science can buy us some time. But it's so important that that messaging is clear because you don't want to give false hope that the solution is, yeah, these other activities. Yeah, yeah. I wanted to talk about another tool that you're working with, which is the identification and learning more about super corals or heat tolerant corals. Can you introduce us to this? What's a super coral? Yeah.

[00:29:27] So this is sort of an area of focus during my PhD and that National Geographic exposition I mentioned was sort of our first one looking on the Great Barrier for these super tolerant corals, particularly in reef associated habitats. So things like mangroves, seagrasses, common habitat adjacent to coral reefs where you can find corals. They're not your normal habitat that you would find corals. They have variable nutrients. They have high light.

[00:29:53] They have high temperature, low pH, low oxygen. And those last three things, high temperature, low pH, low oxygen, are really the three biggest stresses that we're seeing reefs having to contend with climate change. And so during my PhD, it was sort of this realisation that some environments are almost like a natural laboratory for us to try and study how some corals are resilient to these stresses and understand what the cost is to surviving there.

[00:30:22] Can any corals survive there? And so I had a, and still have an immense interest in these habitats because they house these super tolerant corals and they give us, again, cautioned optimism that some corals have got the capacity to survive really harsh conditions. And when we think about reefs, more typical reefs, they're not ones in these special locations.

[00:30:46] Even when we have really, you know, terrible bleaching events, you'll often find one or two colonies that have been able to survive. Now, that's not a reef. So there's no one, no illusion again that this is, you know, great. There's one or two survived. You know, you're talking about a few blades of grass in a football field, right? But the point is they're there. And so one of the questions we've... What about them has enabled them to get through it? Exactly.

[00:31:11] And so for us, it's been like, well, if there are communities that are doing restoration, we want them to be growing those blades of grass. Like how do we find those individuals that are likely to survive through stress? Because if we're doing restoration, but they're susceptible to the stress that's coming, you can argue like, is it worth the effort? And so we've developed a few different tools, but we have like a high throughput. We call it a phenotyping system.

[00:31:36] It's basically able to take a very small, like your fingernail size piece of a coral, rapidly test it through an array of temperatures. And based on the parameters we get back, we can say, OK, we think that colony A has got a higher tolerance than coral B. And so it's worth prioritising that in your nursery and growing that up. And so these are some of the tools that we're trying to develop to support the choices that are being made in community restoration activities.

[00:32:06] Yeah, it's amazing. And that these are naturally occurring corals. Exactly. And so these other habitats, they're kind of, is it right, they'd be like the fringe of the range or more extreme conditions than in memory. Exactly. And so because you get these really variable conditions, then we think that they've kind of adapted and been preconditioned to survive.

[00:32:30] But also then even just on the reef, sometimes just for, you know, luck, some are there. And so it's trying to identify these. We've done a lot of work on asking how tolerant are they? So if we kind of subject them to future conditions, do they keep their tolerance? And we see that they do to a point. And we've tried moving these corals out of these extreme environments to check, like, is it actually that the coral itself is tough?

[00:32:56] Or is it that there's something unique about the environment that kind of protects them? And we see that, like, after a year at least, these corals retain a higher thermal performance. Like, so they're better able to deal with heat stress even under a more stable environment. So they've definitely given us some clues and giving us, you know, some cautioned optimism that there are some corals out there with, you know, some capacity to deal with heat.

[00:33:22] The question is, you know, how many and what that leaves you with? Because some corals is not the same as having a functioning reef. Yeah, it's interesting. So it's really the disturbance events of climate change, I guess, of a big storm. We're really watching after that to learn which corals survive that, like, which ones are more sensitive. It would be so...

[00:33:50] Just keep thinking about, like, plants and other systems too. Like, are some of these weedy corals? It's like... Yeah, and it's a great... That is, you know, that is a great question. In some places... The generalists? The survivalists? Like, yeah. Yes. Yeah, yeah. A hundred percent, yeah. And in some places they are. And, you know, we do see some which is surprising. Like, we often think of our branching species, our acroppers, as sort of being, you know, the weedy fast-growing that come in.

[00:34:17] They provide a lot of the, you know, kind of structure. And then you've got your sort of massive, slow-growing corals, which naturally we think of as being more resilient. And we actually find sort of both types in these systems. So, you know, what we see is we see less species diversity, but we seem to retain, like, the function across the different groups. There's just not enough biomass there for it to, say, be a reef system.

[00:34:43] So, but yeah, the same as we see, you know, after a bushfire, you see those weedy species come in. And we see that on the reef as well. Like, if there's a stress event and then there's a period of time where there isn't stress and natural recovery happens, you'll see the weedy species come in first. And that's why sometimes it's misleading when there are reports to say coral cover's been the highest it's ever been. Well, it's high because weedy species have come in very quickly and colonised that area.

[00:35:11] But that coral cover doesn't translate to biodiversity and to resilience and to function. Mm hmm. Yeah. Like the old growth reef. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And the reef is a big, you know, there's thousands of individual reefs when you think of the Great Barrier Reef. So the conditions of these reefs could be quite different. I'm sure it's not, you know, every spot on the Great Barrier Reef does not look the same.

[00:35:40] Right. Can you describe some of your field sites or some of your favourite field sites and what are some of the differences between them? Yeah. So, you know, I describe it if we think the reefs about the size of Italy, the country, you can imagine how there are certain counties, certain towns that, you know, more prosperous and thriving more than others. It's the same with the reef. Some reefs on the Great Barrier Reef have experienced, you know, repeated stress.

[00:36:08] They've had impacts from cyclones as well as bleaching. And so some of those sites have very low coral cover and they're dominated more now by soft corals and algae and more of a degraded site. But then there are other sites that are still really high in coral cover, have immense diversity. And so that nuance is so important for when people ask, what is the state of the Great Barrier Reef? It's a complex array of all of those variables.

[00:36:36] But what we do know is since the 1980s, the overall coral cover on all of the reefs has been declining. And it's about 30 to 40 percent as a collective lower than it was. So, you know, that's the reality that we face. But in saying that, there are some amazing sites, you know, around Port Douglas, where we do a lot of our work. There's still some great sites that we go to and, you know, really amazing.

[00:37:00] I've had the opportunity to go further north and some of the outer reef sites are just, you know, still really stunning and really amazing. And so, yeah, it is, you know, I say to people, you know, still go visit it, still go see it. I feel if people can see the reef and experience the magic of it, it helps them fall in love. And I think if people love something, it's so much easier to care about something, can take action.

[00:37:26] So, yeah, it's still it's still got a lot of wonder and a lot of, you know, amazing biodiversity on it. But it's struggling. Yeah, I feel like within the context of Australia, even if people have not seen the reef themselves, there's a real warmth to it, a real pride in it. Like it plays quite a big place in the Australian psyche and in the environment.

[00:37:56] What do you think the reef and it's one of the first systems that we talk about when we think about climate change within Australia? Like what do you think it kind of represents and means to Australians that that it's there? You know, I think I saw something. It was probably a few months ago that there had been a questionnaire that was sent out. And I think it was, you know, like most Australians said that even if they never intended to visit the reef, they wanted to know that the reef would be there in case they wanted to visit it.

[00:38:25] Right. Like they feel this like strong connection to it. Like there is this just, you know, link to national identity. And so, you know, I think that, yeah, it is it is something that as as a nation, people are very proud of. And and, you know, it's so unique. Right. This system is so unique to to Australia. You know, the fact that it's so, you know, it's visible from space that it provides all of these amazing ecosystem services.

[00:38:53] You know, it's got a huge asset value as well. And so I think that that that is that resonates with a lot of people. I would say that I don't think that most Australians realise the immense threat that it's under. And I think, you know, we hear about it in the news. You know, we hear about, you know, again, sometimes the conflicting messaging about what the state of the reef is and what it's facing.

[00:39:21] But the reality is we risk losing not just the Great Barrier Reef, but all reefs as we know them potentially in our lifetime. And, you know, that's what the predictions are that are coming out. And that's not to say that there won't be some corals and there won't be some reef, but that the functioning systems that provide this coastal protection, that provide, you know, the pharmaceutical compounds that are found on high biodiversity reef systems.

[00:39:47] And the, you know, the fish stocks that are supported by these, you know, systems, the tourism value. And so I think it's, there is definitely, I would say, a lack of realisation, the risk that could occur if we lose reefs. And that for me, the realisation that reefs are this, you know, really are a visual early warning sign for what's happening more globally to other ecosystems.

[00:40:14] And so I think that's something that I hope, you know, not to scare people, but to make people really realise that if we really value this amazing natural wonder that we have, we need to, you know, start ensuring that we conserve it and protect it. And that requires climate action. That's so interesting just to be like, it's not surprising, but that pharmaceuticals from the reef,

[00:40:40] if our physiology can like take those in and it works with us. Like, yeah, I know it is something it's so because the corals can't move, like because the corals are stuck there, they have to make their own space. And so they produce like wild chemical compounds to fight their neighbours, which can be really beneficial in pharmaceuticals. And they also have some fluorescent proteins and things that are used.

[00:41:07] So, yeah, they're so cool for so many reasons, not just for science nerds like me. Yeah, they're fighting. I mean, that's a whole other thing, how they fight with each other and warn each other and communicate and that we can even just interlope on those. And it has some impact on us. It's amazing. Last question for you.

[00:41:30] You've spoken quite a bit about even if we haven't seen the reef, we're connected to it. We can we how we live, we intersect with it still. Can you reflect on on that connection and how how do you understand that and see that? Yeah. So, you know, I think there's a there's a few few ways for me.

[00:41:53] So, I mean, you know, we rely on oxygen to breathe and a lot of the oxygen that we get comes from phytoplankton in the ocean and healthy oceans need healthy coral reefs. They're fundamental to that process. So there is, I guess, kind of that link. There's links with food security and fisheries.

[00:42:16] And, you know, so many fisheries, even if the fish don't spend their whole time on a coral reef, rely on either a sort of food chain that relies on a coral reef. So if we lose reefs, the risk to fish stock collapse globally is intensified. And then obviously that's got knock on effects. And from an economic perspective, if we lose reefs, there will be many nations that will increase like have flooding under climate change and will be lost.

[00:42:45] And so then you see climate refugees, which has knock on effects to, you know, economies and to, you know, social unrest and balance. So there's some really tangible, I guess, direct ones, I guess, more broadly for me, you know, the health and well-being of us and the ocean is just just really connected. And I feel that over time, you know, especially a very Western perspective, that we're kind of separate to nature.

[00:43:13] But that's for me when I look at, you know, indigenous communities, my husband's Maori and I look at the New Zealand culture and it's the view that we are part of nature. We are not separate from nature. And, you know, every choice and every action we do connects us with nature because we're part of it. And that's something that really resonates with me. And so, you know, I say this to, you know, my family that are in Essex in the UK, nowhere near a coral reef.

[00:43:41] And I'm like, the choices that you make or don't make impact the coral reefs here in Australia. We are all connected. And so for me, it's that it's that connection and realizing that if we can help the reef in turn, it's actually going to help our own health and well-being for us as humanity. Yeah, thank you. And it's it feels abstract, but what is actually more tangible than oxygen?

[00:44:06] And we breathe oxygen and just having some gratitude to the systems that provide us oxygen. Yeah, how we how we live, it does not exist without the ocean. That was my conversation with Dr. Emma Camp. Thank you for listening and thank you to Emma for sharing her work. Plant Kingdom is hosted and produced by me, Catherine Polcz, and our music is by Carl Didur.

[00:44:36] Listen to us wherever you get your podcasts and check out our website at plantkingdom.earth.