A reef restoration organization has collected and successfully facilitated the fertilization of over 1.3 million Grooved brain coral embryos. The mass spawning event happened just after dusk on Monday night on Buddy’s Reef, Bonaire, with Grooved brain corals, Diploria labyrinthiformis, releasing gametes into the water where they were later collected by the team. The gametes were taken to a lab for fertization and since then, 1.3 million embryos have developed into tiny, swimming larvae.
“The aim of this month’s collection is to run several experiments in collaboration with SECORE International that will allow us to fine-tune our larval propagation methods for future spawning events,” Reef Renewal Foundation Bonaire announced this week on its social media.
“We retained a subset of D. lab larvae in the lab to investigate the effect of water from different locations on their development and settlement, and better understand the factors that influence their success. The rest have been released back into the ocean to find new spots to settle on Bonaire’s reefs.”
Facilitating fertilization in the lab helps coral populations overcome a massive bottleneck in their early life cycle – predation, proximity to other colonies, and more. Lab fertilization in such high numbers will help give the endangered coral the step up that it needs to become re-established in greater numbers.
RRFB has promised to publish more updates on its captive fertilization progress.
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