Some researchers believe that the polychromatic reefs vital for underwater ecosystems may manage to adjust to climate change in a manner that would be better than previously thought. The belief is based upon findings of a new study on how coral reacts to global climate change.

If this happens for real then a kaleidoscopic array of fish will not lose its habitat required for survival. As a result, people who rely on fish for their livelihood and food in that area will not face troubles to look to something else to ensure their survival as well. Coral reefs are already known to mitigate the blow of storms headed to areas where there lives a population of human beings.

The study was conducted on a single coral species in a remote Pacific Ocean lagoon that laps the shores of Ofu Island in American Samoa. The findings have same implications for corals all around the world, said Stephen Palumbi, a marine biologist at Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific Grove, California and the study author.

He said if the findings are true then corals around the world will live for a slightly longer period of time before warming of oceans completely kills them. "As the oceans warm, they will pick up some of the slack, but we don't know what the limits of that are. We don't know when they are going to get maxed out", he added.

What the researchers have figured out from their endeavor is the ability of coral Acropora hyacinthus to acclimatize to its physiology to the gradual, annual rise in warming of oceans because of the forces of global climate change.

The findings have been published in the journal Science. Adaptations have also been seen evolving in the past in some colonies to offer greater resistance to adverse effects of warming.