Page 102 - BBC Wildlife Volume 36 #12

OURWILD WORLD
MARINE BIOLOGY
What is super coral?
‘Super coral’ is a term coined as
Ascientists search for innovative solutions
to the coral bleaching crisis. Just as we have
bred domestic animals for desirable features
– speed in greyhounds, for instance – it
might be possible to breed corals that are
more tolerant to ocean warming.
There are various ways to achieve this.
Scientists can cross hardy types of coral
together; use genetic engineering to
enhance heat tolerance; inoculate corals with
bleaching-resistant symbiotic algae or even
‘train’ corals in tanks by exposing them to
In winter, common snipe can
be spotted at pool edges;
in spring, they frequent
moorlands, where males
‘drum’ to woo females.
102 BBC Wildlife
ARACHNIDS
Breeding coral
could ofer a ray Cancrabspiders
of hope to reefs
afected by
warming seas. beneit plants?
Crab spiders are sit-and-wait
Apredators, and many do their
sitting and waiting on flowers. Whether
the arachnids help or hinder the plants
depends on the prey they seek. If they
hunt herbivorous insects, their hosts
will surely benefit; if they plump for
pollinators, the opposite will be true.
It could go either way, depending on
the ecology of the species involved.
Mustard plants, for example, certainly
benefit from the presence of crab
spiders, Thomisus onustus, when
under attack from insect pests, to the
extent that they send out a chemical
‘SOS’ to draw the defenders in.
Stuart Blackman
heat. We can also collect and breed from wild
corals that have survived bleaching events.
While it’s important to explore all options
to help save our reefs, super coral is not
ultimately a globally scalable solution. Super
corals could be replanted to help repair
individual reefs, but replanting the entire
2
estimated 250,000km of coral habitat that
exists across our oceans would be like trying
to regrow the world’s forests from seedlings.
We already know the solution – to prevent T. onustus can be yellow,
white or pink, depending
runaway climate change by reducing our on the hue of the flower.
carbon emissions. Emma Kennedy Coral reef: Marine Photobank
BIRDS
How do snipe drum?
'Drumming’ is a courtship behaviour
Aperformed by the males of several members
of the snipe family, including both British species
– the common snipe and the rarer jack snipe. Also
referred to as ‘bleating’ or ‘winnowing’, it's one of
the most atmospheric sounds of the natural world,
particularly when heard on a still, moonlit night.
How the sound is made has been the subject loris: Thomas Marent/FLPA; painted lady: Stephen Dalton/NPL; red admiral: Malcolm Schuyl/FLPA; monarch: Ingo Arndt/FLPA
of much conjecture. There were beliefs that it mage prov de by Jayne Jenk ns; crab sp der: An na C. Knauer, Un vers ty of Zur ch; sn pe: Thomas H nsche BIA/FLPA; s ow
was emitted by spirits or created by bats. In 1912,
ornithologist Philip Manson-Bahr finally succeeded
in proving that the eerie noise was produced as the
snipe rose high in the sky and performed a series
of descending loops, holding out two stiffened
outer tail feathers to catch the air in the process.
With numbers of breeding common snipe
falling across the British Isles, due to habitat loss,
this ethereal avian percussion is becoming an
increasingly rare occurrence. Polly Pullar
December 2018