The MUI team have been studying and working with the corals around Laamu for over 10 years and now guests can get involved with the latest coral project.
Our new guest activity allows guests to get hands on and involved in our coral restoration efforts. Guests can join the MUI team to assist and actively be a part of the process of coral micro-fragmentation.
The micro-fragmentation restoration technique involves cutting selected corals into small pieces, just a few polyps across. It may seem wrong to cut up corals, but this action does not kill the coral. A coral colony is made up of many small animals all living as one, with each polyp being an individual animal. We do what we can to ensure the individual polyps are not damaged. Once these corals are cut into their micro-fragments, we can glue each new fragment of coral onto our special coral plugs that have the ideal surface for coral growth.
Now the corals are secured onto the coral plugs, these fragments will now continue to grow and in time be a large adult coral colony once again.
One of our junior marine biologists with our Coral researcher Coco, learning the ropes of micro-fragmentation
A Galaxia coral recently fragmented and ready to go in our Grow-out Tanks
Why coral micro-fragmentation?
One of the main reason this technique is used for coral restoration is that the cutting of the coral, triggers a regenerative response in the coral, causing them to grow 25 to 50 times faster than normal for a period of time. Therefore by doing this to selected corals, the amount of coral can be increased rapidly due to this regenerative response.
The micro-fragmentation work done here at MUI is done in addition to our larval restoration project, which is slower but builds more genetic diversity on our reefs. So by doing both of these coral restoration techniques we give our corals around Laamu the best possible chance to thrive!
As well as helping restore the amount of corals we have on our reefs, micro-fragmentation is being used by the MUI team to selectively increase the number of rare corals in Laamu, bringing back a greater species diversity.
This restoration technique is accessible to all - so we have turned it into an activity, where participants/guests can get hands-on and help the MUI team with rebuilding the reefs of Laamu. And we need the help, because our new outdoor nursery can take 10,000 of these fragments!
As the threat to our coral reefs grows, so too must our solutions.
Whats the plan with the fragmented corals?
Once these corals are fragmented, they can be placed in our Coral Grow-out tanks situated just outside of the SHELL (photo below). Here the corals have fresh ocean water flowing over them all day long and can grow without the threat of predation, disease or heat waves. When the corals have grown large enough, they can then be transplanted out onto our house reef or elsewhere around the atoll to help boost the coral cover and diversity of reefs around Laamu
MUI’s Coral Grow-out Tanks, which have the capacity to hold 10,000 growing corals!