The South Florida Corals and Climate Change Laboratory is the first of it’s kind to tackle the global problem of the impact of climate change on corals. Fully operational in 2007, the lab facilitates the study on how corals respond to the combined stress of greenhouse warming and ocean acidification.
Two Caribbean coral species used as study subjects, Montastraea faveolata (mountainous star coral) and Porites furcata (finger coral), are maintained under precisely controlled temperature and carbon dioxide conditions while exposed to natural light conditions.
The lab at the Rosenstiel School simulates environments similar to what corals will experience in the next 50 to 100 years to see if the skeletal development is affected. The National Science Foundation, the Packard Foundation, the Conservation International and the Wildlife Conservation Society have made the new lab possible through their funding of research and the actual facilities and instrumentation.
