Project title: CoraBoost — A nutritional supplement to boost coral resilience
Project lead: Dr. Emma Camp
Co-applicants: Affendi Amri, Prof. Christine Ferrier-Pages, Dr. Jennifer Matthews, Prof. Phillip Doble, Dr. Jonathan Moorhead, Dr. Joseph Henry, Cakra Adiwijaya
Countries involved: Australia, Malaysia, Monaco, Indonesia
Takes place: Australia, Malaysia, Monaco, Indonesia
Supporting institutions: University of Technology Sydney, University of Malaya, Centre Scientifique de Monaco, Monsoon Aquatics, CoralKU, Gili Matra Bersama Foundation/Coral Catch, Gili Shark Conservation
Total budget: USD $1,466,397.00
Duration: 36 months
Project overview
Coral reefs are in decline worldwide. Climate change, pollution, disease outbreaks, over exploitation. There are numerous threats that are stressing corals and driving this steep decline. But what if we could enhance their natural capacities to tolerate stress with nutritional supplements? Just like humans, corals need balanced vitamin and mineral levels to thrive, particularly when they experience stress. Yet, because corals are typically found in low nutrient waters, the importance of both the quality and quantity of nutrients to coral resilience is poorly understood. This project, spearheaded by a transdisciplinary team, seeks to improve coral health and resilience by developing a novel nutritional supplement, CoraBoost. The team will leverage over 70 years of collective expertise to design and optimize this tailored supplement, containing trace elements, antioxidants, and lipids. Trials will target tropical and cold-water corals, employing both direct dosing and enriched live food methods. With strong partnerships and industrial infrastructure in place, this project aims to translate cutting-edge R&D into practical, global reef restoration tools.
Specific objectives
- Identify a set of trace elements, lipids, and antioxidants that boost coral fitness during heat stress.
- Optimize the effective delivery of this nutritional supplement to corals.
How the objectives will be met
- Test individual supplement components: three experiments with live food will be set up. In the first one, the food will be enriched with different doses of trace elements, lipids, and antioxidants (one at a time) to determine their optimal concentration. In the second one, corals will be fed enriched live food to assess the fitness benefits to corals under heat stress. The third one will be used to optimize the timing of delivery for direct dosing and live food.
- Combine supplement components into CoraBoost: optimized doses of trace elements, antioxidants, and lipids will be formulated to create CoraBoost. CoraBoost will be deployed in many different trials with tropical and cold-water corals, to investigate its impact on the physiological state of corals under both ambient temperature and heat stress. Both direct dosing and enriched live food will be tested.
- Scale up production and deployment: trials will be conducted in three industrial aquaculture systems to validate at scale the benefits of CoraBoost on >15,000 corals alongside other organisms.
Impact of the project
The CoraBoost project will enhance coral fitness and survival during heat stress. This innovative supplement will revolutionize reef restoration efforts by improving the return on investment for restoration practitioners. The supplement recipe will be made publicly available to maximize its impact. Additional funding will be sought to produce and distribute CoraBoost at manufacturing cost to restoration practitioners globally.
Major highlights
- Scalable, low-tech solution to boost coral fitness during heat stress.
- Development and large-scale testing of a novel nutritional supplement on >15,000 corals.
- Assessing the effectiveness of two delivery methods: direct dosing and enriched live food.
In 2024:
✅ Conducted multiple coral nutrition experiments.
✅ Refined the CoraBoost vitamin mix formula.
✅ Published one scientific article and submitted another.
To learn more about this project, watch the episode 9 of our web series.
