The Future is Nano

Written by: Hannah Kish

Edited by: Miranda Altice

The explosion of technology is occurring worldwide. From trialling therapy user interfaces to Elon Musk placing neural implants to help people communicate, the increase of technology across multiple fields is rapid. It should be no different for coral reef research, says Dr. Liza Roger of Arizona State University, who recently published a paper calling on an increase in nanotechnology use in coral reef research.

Nanotechnology is simply technology at a microscopic scale, small bits of technology interacting with molecules and even atoms. Working at these extraordinarily minute scales allows scientists to manipulate cellular processes. Coral animals being as big as a hand to as small as a droplet of water (Figure 1) means they are perfect for adopting nanotechnology. 

In Dr. Roger’s article, she draws attention to the role coral symbionts play in coral bleaching and how nanotechnology can help. Coral bleaching is caused by increased seawater temperature over an extended period (Figure 2). The symbiotic algae that live within the coral’s skin turn from a friend — giving oxygen as a byproduct of photosynthesis —  to a foe by producing a toxin that harms the coral animal (Douglas, 2003). Research has found that cells within the symbiotic algae called reactive oxygen species (ROS) are a primary driver of this shift. However, there are ROS scavengers that help improve coral health (Szabó, 2020). Trials mixed nanotechnology that mimics these ROS scavengers and antibodies and found that it can help increase the survival of coral babies when treated then exposed to heat stress. When looking at interventions for coral reef health, targeting and increasing survival in these early-life stages means that the high diversity of coral reefs could be preserved. 

Another success of nanotechnology that Roger highlights is targeted monitoring techniques. She discusses research utilizing microscopic-sized sensors that monitor oxygen concentrations moving across coral tissue (Figure 3). Researchers then expose the test organisms to different stress events, and because of nanotechnology, they can see how oxygen exchange across the coral skin membrane changes prior to any visible reaction like bleaching. Implementation into the field could help protect corals by implementing mitigation strategies sooner, increasing the survival of mature colonies. 

Roger does not just focus on the current research but points to what this could mean for the broader field of coral reef conservation. The flexibility of nanotechnology could be applied to disease intervention, a prominent threat to Caribbean reef tracts (Papke, 2024).  Integration of nanotechnology could be used to help prevent these outbreaks and protect unaffected reefs.  This is a critical step in protecting the main economic factor in many Caribbean countries. The Great Barrier Reef has been a news headline in recent years, with questions surrounding recovery potential due to the decrease in overall coral size among many key reef sites (Dietzel, 2020). However, Dr. Rodgers points to research that could increase the settlement of new coral babies on sites using nanotechnology. She highlights that even though coral reefs are at serious risk from climate change, she hopes the advances the public has seen with nanotechnology in other fields can be reflected in conservation efforts. 

Read more here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41565-023-01402-6

The prominent cause of concern for coral reef ecosystems stems from climate change, with ocean warming driving large-scale coral bleaching and mortality worldwide (Moritz, 2018). 

Sources:

Dietzel A, Bode M, Connolly SR, and Hughes TP (2020). Long-term shifts in the colony size structure of coral populations along the Great Barrier Reef. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 287(1936), 1471-2954.

Douglas, A. E. (2003). Coral bleaching––how and why?. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 46(4), 385-392.

Papke, E., Carreiro, A., Dennison, C., Deutsch, J., Isma, L. M., Meiling, S. S., … & Ushijima, B. Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease: A Review of Emergence, Impacts, Etiology, Diagnostics, and Intervention. (2024) Frontiers in Marine Science, 10:1321271.

Szabó, M., Larkum, A.W.D., Vass, I. (2020). A Review: The Role of Reactive Oxygen Species in Mass Coral Bleaching. Photosynthesis in Algae: Biochemical and Physiological Mechanisms, 45, 459-488.