Neat article on coral spawning and preservation of genotypes

[NikkiT]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/24/s...er-a-lifeline-for-coral.html?_r=1&ref=science

 

[redfishbluefish]

Interesting….a sperm bank for coral. However, I’m still a bit confused! They are only preserving coral cells and sperm, and not the eggs or embryos, which are too difficulty to preserve. So if you only have the sperm, how is this preserving the species? Did I miss something? I do agree that you can currently take this sperm and fertilize other corals around the world, increasing diversity, but I’m still confused on preservation of the species.

Thanks for sharing.