Supporting aquarium induced spawning and experiments to enhance coral propagation and restoration

Florida’s Coral Reef is currently experiencing a multi-year disease-related mortality event that has resulted in massive die-offs in multiple coral species. Innovative and radical measures are needed to assist with the recovery of Florida’s Coral Reef. The primary objective of this research is optimizing and upscaling ex-situ coral sexual propagation techniques, which ultimately serve to increase the genetic diversity of coral populations used for restoration. The researchers focus on three promising areas of research to meet this objective: (1) enhancing methods in ex-situ coral spawning, larval rearing, and recruit grow out; (2) screening bacterial isolates and testing for their potential use as probiotics in the larval and recruit stages; and (3) attempting to create multigenotypic individuals (chimeras) in recruits and adults.