Snorkelers observe coral spawning in French Polynesia. I dove off the back of our sailboat into the warm waters of the South Pacific just after sunrise. My husband and 10 year-old son followed, each holding an underwater camera.
Together, we kicked over to a nearby coral reef. This wasn’t our first time snorkeling off the gorgeous island of Taha’a in French Polynesia. My family had already spent two weeks exploring the Society Islands abroad a catamaran that we’d chartered from Dream Yacht Worldwide .
But it was our first time snorkeling as citizen scientists. Our task: document whether the coral below sent up a cloud of eggs and sperm. This is called broadcast spawning, and it’s how corals have sex to reproduce and create reefs.
We spread out, hovering atop mounds of coral teeming with colorful fish. Then we waited to see if the reef released its stuff. We weren’t the only ones snorkeling that morning in search of eggs and sperm.
On January 18, more than 400 observers from 20 countries volunteered to watch coral spawn. Snorkelers were spread across 11,000 miles of the Pacific, spanning both hemispheres, from Polynesia to Tanzania. Our combined observations are helping to track the health of coral reefs across half the world.
More than 500 citizen scientists documented coral spawning around the world. “Coral spawning is the only way for a reef to be resilient. You get a new generation of corals, and this new generation can adapt to its new environment,” says Vet.