Dr. Steve Palumbi Talks American Samoa's Amazing Coral Resiliency

Several years ago National Park Service researcher, Peter Craig, observed corals thriving in overheated reef pools on Ofu, an island in American Samoa's Manu'a Group.


According to  conventional knowledge American Samoa's  corals should have bleached out and died in the extremely hot reef water. But they thrived instead.

For the past six years Dr. Steve Palumbi of Stanford University's Ocean Research Department has conducted on going research into why Ofu's corals survive. His results indicate an intricate set of genes within the coral that regulate the corals themselves to the prevailing water temperature.

Portable Labs on the island of Ofu in American Samoa

Dr. Palumbi's research may provide clues to save the world's remaining coral reefs from climate change and global warming.

The video provides excerpts from from his speech at the Coral Reef conference held in American Samoa in conjunction with the dedication and opening of the territory's new Tauese P. Sunia Ocean Center, an interactive learning facility funded and operated by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.