Just as a brick building would collapse without any mortar, so too would coral reefs without their ‘cement’.
Crustose coralline algae, or CCA, is an important part of what stabilises reef structures in changing conditions.
To determine just how rising temperatures and ocean acidification affect CCA, researchers have deployed more than 144 'stations’ across 18 reefs.
Designed from concrete blocks covered in settlement tiles, these inventive stations are monitoring how CCA calcifies and grows under differing environments.
