Uploaded May 2026 | Updated September 2026, 59 minutes ago
In the Experimental Reef Lab, scientists with NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory and the Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies are taking coral resilience experiments to the next level by exposing them to multiple stressors at once including thermal stress, ocean acidification, and hypoxia (low oxygen).
This novel experiment is part of the second module of a four-part collaborative initiative called the Florida Regional Ecosystems Stressors Collaborative Assessment (FRESCA) which aims to understand how current and future ocean conditions will impact South Florida’s vital benthic habitats.
As Emma Pontes, a CIMAS post-doctoral researcher explains, corals in the wild don’t experience stressors in isolation, so it’s important we study them in as natural a way as possible.
As it turns out, this is easier said than done since changes to one stressor can also trigger changes in another. But thanks to sophisticated tank systems designed in-house at NOAA AOML, scientists are able to successfully conduct these multi-stressor experiments on coral, sponge, and seagrass species.
In the Experimental Reef Lab, scientists with NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory and the Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies are taking coral resilience experiments to the next level by exposing them to multiple stressors at once including thermal stress, ocean acidification, and hypoxia (low oxygen).
This novel experiment is part of the second module of a four-part collaborative initiative called the Florida Regional Ecosystems Stressors Collaborative Assessment (FRESCA) which aims to understand how current and future ocean conditions will impact South Florida’s vital benthic habitats.
As Emma Pontes, a CIMAS post-doctoral researcher explains, corals in the wild don’t experience stressors in isolation, so it’s important we study them in as natural a way as possible.
As it turns out, this is easier said than done since changes to one stressor can also trigger changes in another. But thanks to sophisticated tank systems designed in-house at NOAA AOML, scientists are able to successfully conduct these multi-stressor experiments on coral, sponge, and seagrass species.
