Surviving is a great challenge to young coral settlers and is a bottleneck in the process of reef restoration. In an effort to improve post-settlement survival, a suite of substrates are being developed and tested that provide corals with microcrevices that may protect them during early growth.
The timing of deployment and the growth of biofilm communities also impacts the attractiveness of the substrates to coral larvae, and has the potential to influence survival after settlement.
The aim of this project is to condition a variety of shapes and substrates in the field over different durations, to evaluate biofilm development across the substrates through time, and to assess survival after settlement. The substrates are already in the field being prepared ahead of spawning, and will return to the National Sea Simulator when the larvae are ready to settle. Then the corals will go back out to the reef and will be monitored for their performance over the next year.
