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Artificial coral rearing at Madoogali, Maldives
from Dr. Wolfgang Loch and Karen Loch

In March 2011, a small team of researchers from the Ruhr University of Bochum (Germany) and members of the association "Reef Protection Maldives e.V. (RePMeV)" revisited the coral island of Madoogali. It was the aim to continue coral larval seeding experiments coral larval seeding experiments the coral larval seeding experiments that have been started already in 2010. During that first trial the team successfully cultivated about 5000 mature coral larvae. Based on the predicted mass spawning window for 2011 - scheduled to occur around the 14th of March 2011 (Loch & Loch, 2006) - a follow-up was planned for this year. The spawning event actually took place on the 14th and 15th of March (Fig. 1).

 
Fig. 1: Wash-up of huge quantities of gametes on the sandy shores of Madoogali (Maldives), dipping the water - including the drift line - in deep red.

After skimming the coral larvae off selected sites from the inner-reef areas of the atoll, the harvest has been split and dispersed in 10 separate breeding vessels, each housing some 250 000 offspring. The level of maturity and development have been observed microscopically and documented by macroscopic still-images (Fig. 2). Out of a total of 2.5 million fertilized eggs and even without using sophisticated logistics and laboratory facilities, it was possible to cultivate some 500,000 maturing larvae.

On the 6th day of their developmental stage, these settlement-competent larvae have been redistributed back onto natural coral reef-substrate. These substrates revealed very poor coverage rates. The applied larvae numbers per substrate area available were estimated to be around 50,000 planulae per m². In order to document the outcome of this ongoing field study, the rate of settlement within these sections of the reef along with the natural settling rate will be monitored over the years to come. For monitoring purposes, the initial stages of development in these areas have already been photographically documented. This was done using a frame with a metric scale and which covers approx. 1 m².

Acknowledgements
The team would like to thank the Madoogali management for their support of this ongoing research project.

Literature
Loch, K. & W. Loch (2006): Änderung der Steinkorallen-Vermehrungsstrategie durch Klimawandel? Biologie in unserer Zeit. 3/ 2006: 16 – 17. Willey-VCH Verlag, Weinheim.

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