Listening for home: How corals use sound to build reefs

What does home sound like to you? To free-swimming baby corals, called larvae, it may sound like reef animals croaking, grunting, and snapping. Host Danny Hentz talks to WHOI scientists who are investigating how these newly born corals can use sound to find a place to settle, what happens when that sound isn’t there, and how it might be used to help restore degraded reefs.

Research described in the episode is a part of WHOI’s Reef Solutions Initiative, a multidisciplinary venture comprising reef-based engineering, monitoring, and restoration projects that aim to create a new blueprint for an international coral reef observation and diagnostics network. Photography is by © Dan Mele.