A New Genetic Rescue Toolkit for Ocean Conservation

This session highlights both the challenges and promising innovations in understanding and conserving ocean biodiversity with a focus on coral reefs. Overfishing, disease and habitat destruction are compounded by the effects of a warmer, more acidic ocean. These challenges demand greater commitment to conventional conservation strategies as well as accelerated innovation. Next-generation tools (e.g. genomics, transcriptomics, stem cells, cryopreservation, beneficial microbes) enable new insights to manage, conserve, and potentially intervene in marine systems. This session presents an overview of tools and techniques that can provide new approaches to the management and restoration for one of the most productive and biodiverse ocean ecosystems, coral reefs. The session will highlight a new generation of scientists who are tackling coral reef restoration challenges, featuring students, conservation genomics specialists and other speakers from the front lines of new tool development.