declared<\/a> the world is currently experiencing its fourth global bleaching event on record. <\/p>\nBleaching is <\/strong>bad. During long spells of extreme heat, the relationship between coral and the algae that live inside its tissues breaks down. Those algae give the corals most of their food and their brilliant color in exchange for nutrients and a place to absorb sunlight. White, or \u201cbleached,\u201d corals aren\u2019t dead; they are starving to death.<\/p>\nSince early last year, NOAA scientists have confirmed mass bleaching in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans, including along the coastlines of Florida, the Caribbean, and the Great Barrier Reef. The first bleaching event on a global scale was in 1998. <\/strong>\u201cAs the world\u2019s oceans continue to warm, coral bleaching is becoming more frequent and severe,\u201d Derek Manzello, a coral reef ecologist at NOAA, said Monday in a statement. <\/p>\nThis is bleak for pretty much everyone on the planet. Coral reefs operate like seawalls, helping minimize flooding during hurricanes. They provide homes to roughly a quarter of all marine species including the fish people eat at one point or another. And they are an engine of the tourism economy in many places, such as the Florida Keys, Mexico, and Australia. <\/p>\n
But amid all this destruction \u2014 which will almost certainly get worse in the decades to come \u2014 there are still some signs of hope. Not all coral reefs are dying. Indeed, some are teeming with life. <\/p>\n
In March, a team of marine biologists was diving off the coast of Cambodia when they witnessed something that filled them with awe. <\/p>\n
An explosion of life<\/h3>\n
Once a year, after dark, a bit of magic happens in the ocean. Within tropical waters worldwide, large chunks of coral \u2014 those colorful rocklike structures in shallow, coastal seas, each a colony of living animals \u2014 start puffing out hundreds of little pearl-sized <\/strong>balls. Some are pink. Others are red, orange, or yellow. For a few minutes, the ocean is a snow globe, and then the balls float away. <\/p>\nThis phenomenon, known as spawning, is how many corals reproduce. Each ball is a bundle of eggs and sperm from an individual coral colony. Different colonies of the same species somehow know how to spawn on the same day and same time, so their eggs and sperm can meet and form baby corals. <\/p>\n
Spawning is incredibly hard to observe. Again, it happens only once a year, and often only for a few minutes at night. Plus, bleached corals are less likely to spawn successfully. <\/p>\n
Yet, in March, a team of marine biologists got lucky: They witnessed a massive spawning event off the coast of Cambodia, in the Gulf of Thailand. Not long after sunset, several different kinds of coral filled the water with pearls.<\/p>\n
The team, led by Fauna & Flora International, an environmental group, was able to capture the event on video, shown in a series of clips below.<\/p>\n
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