Marine biologist Elvira Alvarado, often known as the “mother of coral”. At 70, she’s nonetheless diving and pioneering a kind of coral IVF to assist save endangered reefs.
John Otis/NPR
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SAN ANDRÉS, Colombia — Practically 50 years after she first placed on a wetsuit, Elvira Alvarado nonetheless remembers coming upon a coral reef off Colombia’s Caribbean coast.
“Everything was alive. And it was green and bright orange. And there were fishes. And there were huge things. And they were corals. It was astonishing,” she says. “Can you imagine paradise? It’s paradise.”
At 70, Colombian marine biologist Elvira Alvarado continues to be diving, researching and coaching a brand new technology of scientists. Her mission: rescuing Colombia’s endangered coral reefs by reproducing coral by in-vitro fertilization. Her lifelong dedication to those marine invertebrates has earned her the nickname: “the mother of Colombian corals.”
Coral are very important ecosystems that present meals, shelter and breeding grounds for some 4,000 fish species. They shield shorelines from erosion. They even help tourism by attracting snorkelers and divers.
Nevertheless, ailments, air pollution and rising ocean temperatures are taking an enormous toll. For the reason that Seventies, greater than half of all of the coral within the Caribbean have died.
“I saw them dying. I saw them turning white,” says Alvarado from the Colombian island of San Andrés within the Caribbean Sea, the place lots of the as soon as unique, garden-like coral reefs are actually barren.
Juliana Vanegas, a marine biologist who works with Alvarado, explains what occurs.
“The coral are still alive, but when they are bleached and are not feeding, they start to get weaker and weaker,” she says. “And if that lasts for enough time the coral die, basically of starvation.”
As well as, coral weakened by illness or overheated water have a a lot tougher time reproducing. So, right here on San Andrés, Alvarado and her staff of a few dozen divers, decked out in scuba gear, are lending a hand by in-vitro fertilization, or IVF.
The approach was pioneered by Australian scientist Peter Harrison. It includes amassing coral eggs and sperm, fertilizing them in a laboratory, then transplanting them to current reefs. Alvarado has change into Colombia’s most energetic proponent of the approach.
Elvira Alvarado and a fellow marine biologist fertilize coral eggs and sperm within the lab, utilizing a pioneering approach to revive broken reefs.
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“We can’t stop what is happening,” she says, referring to local weather change and extremely deadly threats like Stony Coral Tissue Loss Illness, which was first reported in 2014 and has unfold all through the Caribbean. “But we can try to replace coral that’s dying.”
Alvarado was first drawn to the ocean by tv. As a younger lady residing within the U.S. she was fascinated by applications like Sea Hunt and Flipper, a few bottlenose dolphin that outsmarts many of the people on the present.
She moved again in Colombia within the Sixties to grew to become one of many nation’s first feminine marine biologists to give attention to coral reef restoration. Alongside the way in which she bought to satisfy Jacques Cousteau, the world’s most well-known oceanographer who visited her college.
“We sat down, and he was talking to me. It was a dream,” she says.
Elvira Alvarado, within the Caribbean Sea off the Colombian island of San Andrés. At 70, the marine biologist continues to be diving, researching and coaching a brand new technology of scientists.
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Alvarado was a pure underwater. She discovered to free dive — with out air tanks — to a depth of 72 toes. She initially did most cancers analysis involving sharks. Nevertheless, as coral started dying off, she targeted on reef restoration by rising new coral.
Timing is every thing. Coral spawn simply annually, a few week after the complete moon. That offers Alvarado’s staff right here on San Andrés only a tiny window of alternative to dive down and gather coral eggs and sperm.
Alvarado strikes gracefully underwater. Some 30 toes down, she and her staff place nets with assortment tubes round chosen coral. Then, after darkish on a second dive, they verify the gathering tubes. Final night time, they got here up empty. However tonight’s a special story.
“They’ve spawned,” yells an ecstatic Alvarado, who then rushes off to a makeshift laboratory.
There, she and the staff combine collectively eggs and sperm and place them in water-filled plastic tubs. Below a microscope, they seem creamy white within the form of raspberries. Quickly, the coral hatchlings might be positioned in seaside nurseries for six to 12 months then taken again to the reefs.
And since the staff has gathered genetic materials from coral that seem extra proof against warmth and stress, their efforts are designed to breed hardier varieties. The trick, says Alvarado, is to regenerate coral quicker than they die. However she’s additionally real looking.
Whereas coral reefs is not going to be as various as they have been when she first began diving within the Seventies, she says: “We will have reefs that are resistant to the warming conditions.”
Nets are positioned over coral to gather eggs and sperm, a part of efforts to fertilize and restore the reef.
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She’s additionally proud to have mentored scores of younger marine biologists — largely girls — who all appear to adore her.
“She’s a very inspiring woman,” says María Fernanda Maya who heads the Blue Indigo Basis that works to revive reefs. “She’s the mother of coral in Colombia.”
That is why, when Alvarado lastly does cling up her swim fins, her legacy will dwell on.
“When I started this, we were just three people — two students and me. And look what we’ve got now,” Alvarado says. “This will continue even after I’m dead. That’s the good thing.”
