There has been a lot of speculation recently as to the ability of plants and animals to cope with climate change. For terrestrial animals, coping is easier - move, adapt or die. For the animals of coral reefs, coping with increasing ocean temperatures and water acidification is not so easy. Reefs may be surrounded by open or otherwise dangerous waters, isolating animals on what may be a reef that is damaged or in danger of dying. Coral bleaching and disease are two possible symptoms of increased water temperature; increased ocean acidification can prevent new coral growth and regeneration. Water that is very acidic will corrode corals, wearing them away before they can grow.

Do reef building corals, the valuable hard corals that provide the basis for life on the reef, have the ability to adapt to these environmental changes? Many reefs, even those hundreds or thousands of years old, have been completely wiped out in just a decade; over 95% of the coral in the Galapagos Islands was killed in a mass coral bleaching event caused by El Nino in the 1980s. However, recent evidence suggests that the world's coral reefs are not all equal, and that some may be better prepared to cope and adapt to climate change than others.

In Samoa, the summer low tides occur during the hottest part of the day, exposing coral reefs to  to water temperatures that are typically lethal to coral polyps; however, the Samoan reefs manage to survive. The secret? The high temperatures that the corals experience during the heat of the day are not long-lasting; the temperatures accompanying low tide usually last four hours. Once the tide comes back in, corals are given a chance to recover from the high temperatures. These brief periods of temperature stress have had the effect of "cross training" coral to withstand high temperatures for periods lasting in excess of four hours.

Research in the islands of Samoa has found that this rhythmic exposure to higher temperatures has consistently had the cross training effect, effectively serving as climate conditioning. However, scientists are unsure as to whether or not this ability to adapt to temperature change is widespread among corals, or if it is genetically hard-wired in the Samoan coral species.