HIMB) are using selective breeding in corals to speed up natural evolutionary processes and better understand if heat tolerant coral colonies produce offspring better suited to dealing with climate change.
Researchers will identify thermally tolerant corals in the field, breed them in the lab and expose them to anticipated future climate conditions to see how they cope with the increasingly stressful environments they will face. The most resilient corals will then be out-planted and the results of this selective breeding process will be monitored in the field.
Bleached corals lose the algal symbionts living within their cells and can die if they do not recover quickly enough. This process is becoming increasingly frequent and severe, challenging ecosystems everywhere to keep up.
Shayle Matsuda conducting field work. (Photo credit: Gates Coral Lab)
A doctoral candidate in the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Marine Biology Graduate Program, studying a potential coral-saving strategy, was named a recipient of the 2021 David H. Smith Conservation Research Fellowship by the Society for Conservation Biology and the Cedar Tree Foundation.
Shayle Matsuda will be part of a team of researchers engaging in an international coral reef restoration project. During the fellowship, he will assess how transplanting coral affects their health, specifically the symbiotic relationship between coral and their microbiomes.
Shayle Matsuda. (Photo credit: Gates Coral Lab)
A team of faculty at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa School of Architecture and Department of Urban and Regional Planning earned a national award for its “Just Play” project, a set of coordinated courses in architecture, landscape architecture and urban and regional planning. Just Play received the 2021 Course Development Prize in Architecture, Climate Change and Society. Columbia University’s Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture and the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (
ACSA) presents the award.
ACSA 109th annual meeting, which will be held virtually March 24–26, 2021.
“It is a national award that recognizes innovative course development and offers financial support to faculty,” said