Young coral beat the heat with metabolic rewiring

Corals have been under a lot of stress lately. These marine invertebrates—relatives of jellyfish—are highly susceptible to rising ocean temperatures, which can cause dramatic coral bleaching events and death of the coral. But new research published in PLOS Biology suggests that young corals may show some resilience to elevated temperatures (2024, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3002875 ). Young coral larvae need to swim around before finding a place to settle and mature into an adult coral. During this life stage, much of the coral’s energy comes in the form of glucose provided to the coral by photosynthetic algae symbionts that live inside its cells. Ariana Huffmyer , a marine invertebrate biologist at the University of Washington and lead author on the paper, says that under normal conditions, “the coral host limits the amount of nitrogen that is available to the symbionts,” to prevent the algae population from growing out of control. At warmer