Coral

Due to its high sensitivity to ocean warming and ocean acidification, coral presents paleoclimatological records that situate the impact of homo sapiens as a geomorphic force against the long duration of geology. This article examines coral and its highly particular relevance to the Anthropocene. It offers an overview of coral in terms of its evolutionary biology, the extent of the current existential challenges facing the lifeform, and the emerging field of controversial technoscientific conservation that is proposed for ameliorating these existential challenges. Coral is presented as a discrete means to understand how inadvertent human engineering of the biosphere marks the Anthropocene, such that the future of myriad lifeforms is becoming inextricably entwined with polemical human-engineered evolution that is intended to augment ecosystems eroded by the Anthropocene.