Optimizing reproductive success of corals spawned in land-based nurseries (phased)

Within the UNCW Coral REEF Lab, our research aims to improve the efficiency, predictability, and success of coral restoration and conservation through advances in coral propagation, settlement ecology, and reef substrate characterization. Over the past five years, we have focused on optimizing the ex situ spawning of our four Caribbean coral species, producing a high biomass of coral to support restoration and experimentation. The AI coral area sizing tool (COAST program) has the potential to decrease labor associated with manually sizing corals from photographs, reducing processing time to 3–5 seconds per image (24–140 times faster than manual measurements) and increasing efficiency in tracking coral growth over time. Using CASA software, we have improved our understanding of sperm motility and velocity in five Caribbean coral species, helping refine fertilization techniques during spawning. Long-term datasets tracking the timing of coral spawning at both day and minute scales will improve the ability of researchers to forecast spawning events in situ and identify species who are shifting spawning suboptimally that may benefit from targeted for assisted evolution approaches. We are also investigating biofilm communities conditioned for different durations of time to determine which may better enhance coral larval settlement and improve propagation success within our ex situ, sexual propagation facility. In parallel, our work on crustose coralline algae (CCA) identification on Florida’s reefs has highlighted that substrate communities are more diverse, spatially variable, and ecologically unresolved than previously recognized. Finally, preliminary results suggest that ex situ thermal preconditioning of Pseudodiploria clivosa does not universally improve thermal resilience and resistance in situ, with environmental conditions contributing more to the observed differences in health and metabolism over time, highlighting the importance of site selection for outplanting success.