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Living Laboratory

June 1, 2015

The colors in coral come from symbiotic algae cells living inside individual corals organisms, or polyps. This  “bleached” coral has expelled much of its algae in response to the stress of unusually warm water, and the white skeleton shows through the transparent polyps. If high temperatures are short-lived, the coral will recover fully. Some coral reefs thrive in warm waters, making them natural laboratories to study how marine ecosystems might adapt to warming ocean temperatures in the future.(Photo by Jessie Kneeland, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)