Project title: ReefSeed – a portable aquaculture system for rapid and up-scaled production and deployment of corals for reef restoration
Project lead: Andrea Severati
Countries involved: Australia, Maldives
Supporting institutions: Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS), Maldives Marine Research Institute (MMRI), Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO)
Total budget: $1,459,999
Duration: 36 months
Coral aquaculture techniques are being developed at AIMS and across the world to support large-scale efforts to fast-track reef recovery in the future. ReefSeed is an innovative portable, containerised coral aquaculture system capable of producing millions of coral larvae in remote reef regions for reef restoration. Compared to manual spawning methods, ReefSeed is designed to maximise fertilisation success and larval production and reduce labour costs for restoration efforts. This project additionally provide training and technology to coral reef scientists and conservationists in the Maldives such that they may take full advantage of this ground-breaking tool for replenishing degraded reefs.
The mobile coral birthing-and-rearing unit maintains high-quality water filtration and temperature control using an independent power source and draws water from the ocean to support a multi-phase coral rearing-process:
- spawning of adult corals from the wild in ReefSeed
- automated gamete (egg and sperm) capture and fertilisation of eggs
- development of coral larvae and
- settlement of coral larvae and development into young corals on specialised sheets.
Coral seeding devices are then assembled with the young corals on the sheets for deployment onto reefs. ReefSeed is being developed by the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) with tech transfer, testing and overseas training and application being conducted in collaboration with the Maldives Marine Research Institute (MMRI) and CSIRO.
This innovative approach to remote coral aquaculture incorporates the science and technology of the Autospawner, developed by AIMS for the Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program, and other high-tech aquaculture methods for larval culturing, mass settlement and monitoring.
