Scientists at the National Undersea Research Center at UNCW are looking to the future, below the surface.

Divers at the Aquarius Reef Base, the underwater ocean laboratory in Florida, began their fourth mission of 2008 in June.

Since very little is known about the biological reasons why one coral may survive in a new habitat after rescue and transplantation and one may sicken and die, The Aquarius Coral Restoration/Resilience Experiments (ACRREs) were developed.

“There has, over the past few years, been a high level of coral death on reefs throughout the world, but particularly in the Caribbean region,” said Dr. Margaret Miller, Chief Scientist of the mission. “This mortality is due to a combination of stressors including heat-induced coral bleaching, disease, and hurricanes.”

“The idea is to investigate the best practices for restoring corals via transplantation after a ship grounding or other small scale damages to coral reefs,” said Dr. Ellen Prager, Chief Scientist at Aquarius.

Scientists aim to increase their understanding of why and how some corals may perform better as transplants than others in order to deal with rapid coral loss in the vicinity of our environmentally changing reefs.

“The corals are coming from varied sources,” said Prager. “This is part of the experimental plan, to see which survive and grow the best. They are coming from several different field nurseries locally. Some are also culture grown.”

Branching (Acropora) and mound (Montastrea) corals will be gathered from both near and far-away reefs and transplanted together in a single location at the Aquarius Reef Base. This will be done throughout the length of one week by various divers.

Each coral will be evaluated in a variety of ways to understand how their genetic or physiological status may influence their ability to survive in their new home.

“We are measuring a range of parameters to assess the coral fragments’ performance,” said Miller. “Basic responses include mortality and growth that we can observe directly or measure from photographs.”

Scientists will also be measuring more cryptic responses like the photosynthetic performance of the corals, the plant cells that live within the tissue, and the microbial communities that inhabit their surface layer.

“It [the mission] will establish a long term experiment to help us to understand how best to restore small patches of coral reef when damaged, how differently sourced corals grow in a natural setting, and what conditions affect the growing corals,” said Prager.

Scientists working on the project hope to continue this experiment over a long time span so that the resilience of the transplants can be examined during natural changes such as warm water bleaching or disease outbreak events.

The results of this study will help scientists and reef managers to plan and execute coral rescue and transplantation projects more effectively and lend insights on the potential that corals are genetically adapted to specific areas and sites.

“After the mission, we will continue to survey and sample the experiment periodically via standard scuba diving and, hopefully, another Aquarius mission next year,” Miller said.