Resilient R.I. State Coral Could Play Role in Saving Coral Reefs Amid Climate Change

November 13, 2025By Edward Fitzpatrick

Roger Williams University Associate Professor of Marine Biology and Director of the Center for Economic & Environmental Development Koty Sharp.

BRISTOL, R.I. -The northern star coralis just like Rhode Island.

"It's small," Roger Williams University Associate Professor of Marine BiologyKoty Sharp said on the Rhode Island Report podcast. And it's "just like Rhode Islanders - it's hardy," she said. "It can handle those warm summers and those very cold winters."

That was the case that Sharp made in 2021 when she convinced state legislatorsto make the northern star coral, formally known as astrangia poculata, Rhode Island's official state coral.

And now that coral has another attribute, Sharp said: "Just like Rhode Islanders, it's a local that's positioned to address global problems."

She explained that her lab recently pioneered a first-of-its-kind genetic manipulation tool in the northern star coral that could be used to give capabilitiesto other corals, such as better withstanding the effects of climate change. Other researchers had been able to knock out a gene, but her team was able to insert a gene into the genome of the coral, she said.

"It's very exciting to us because what it does is it gives us the technology and potential capacity to deliver particular capabilities to corals," said Sharp, who serves as Director of RWU's Center for Economic and Environmental Development."Whether or not that's a gene that could confer the ability to resist higher temperatures and be resilient to warming in some way, it's also just about enabling more scientific studies to help us learn more about what controls symbiosis and the stability of these animal/algal partnerships."

She explained that many corals depend on algae to survive. But climate change has resulted in coral bleaching, in which corals expel those symbiotic algae because of stress, often from warming waters, causing them to turn white.

"When the corals lose those algae, they truly starve to death," Sharp said. "So that is threatening corals across the globe as the ocean temperatures are warming up."

That is a significant problem because while coral reefs occupy less than 0.2 percent of the globe's surface, they support more than 25 percent of the fish on the planet, she said.

"They are enormous centers of biodiversity for the planet," Sharp said. And healthy marine ecosystems are crucial for boating, tourism, and the economy, she said. "So when we shut down coral reefs, ecologically we're shutting down huge sectors of the economy on a global scale. And not to mention, just the beauty of nature."

Student researchers work in the Wet Lab as part of ongoing RWU efforts to study and spawn astrangia poculata for hands-on research and local habitat restoration.

Attention is focused on this type of research now "because there's a very serious and legitimate sense of urgency about the coral reef crisis," Sharp said. "We need to do something."

But at the same time, researchers are cautious about applying a new technology before fully understanding its long-term implications, she said.

"Scientists are very good at being innovative, and we're also very good at being cautious," she said. "So we're working on riding the line with that. It's a tough problem."

Sharp said researchers also are interested in the northern star coral's ability to go dormant during cold winters and then revive.

"When it comes back out every year, predictably, it goes through a period that looks a lot like recovery," she said. "Its microbiome shifts from what looks like the microbiome of a diseased tropical coral into the microbiome of what looks like a healthy tropical coral."

So scientists want to delve into what happens in the coral during that period and what they can learn to help other corals become more resilient and recover from disturbance, Sharp said.

During a tour of the university's wet lab, Sharp showed how researchers have harvested northern star coral, placing them in tank where they release their egg and sperm in the water.

Once they find each other, they fertilize and start to grow, and researchers are trying to give them the right kind of surface where they can settle and can continue their life cycle, she said.

Sharp pointed to a tank full of different types of surfaces.

"None of them have worked yet," she said. "We have not yet found the thing that causes a strange larvae to settle in captivity. It's stubborn, just like Rhode Islanders."

But, Sharp said, "Thankfully, so are we. So we'll find the answer."

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