The Coralassist Plug: overcoming mortality bottlenecks for coral IVF and reef restoration

Coralassist Plug：克服珊瑚体外受精和珊瑚礁恢复的死亡率瓶颈

• 批准号: EP/Y015290/1
• 负责人: James Guest
• 金额: $ 16.19万
• 依托单位: Newcastle University
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=EP%2FY015290%2F1
• 关键词: Coralassist; Plug; overcoming; mortality; bottlenecks

Coral reefs provide goods and services worth billions of dollars, yet they are extremely vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Asa result, there is now a major research and conservation focus on restoring damaged reefs and actively assisting corals to adapt toclimate change via assisted evolution. Research driven by the PI over the last decade has shown that one of the most promisingtechniques for reef rehabilitation and assisted evolution involves rearing and outplanting sexually propagated corals. However, thisapproach is constrained by labour intensive methods and low survival rates. The results in coral larval propagation methods beingprohibitively expensive and limited to small scales (10's to hundreds of square metres). Therefore, while we can produce largenumbers of sexually propagated for reef rehabilitation and assisted evolution in the laboratory or in nurseries, we need to developmore efficient ways of outplanting corals to the reef. To overcome these bottlenecks, we have developed an innovative technique(the Coralassist Plug) for transplanting juvenile corals that is designed to a) improve handling efficiency during coral sexualpropagation, b) avoid the need for a lengthy nursery rearing period, c) improve efficiency and time to outplant corals to the reef andd) increase early survivorship after outplantation by protecting corals from grazing pressure. In pilot trials, the Coralassist Plug hasproven to be much faster to outplant and to dramatically improve survivorship of IVF produced corals. This project aims to providewider proof of concept testing with a range of stakeholders, to fine-tune the design to increase its effectiveness, and to create abusiness model to provide the Coralassist Plug to reef restoration practitioners as a tool for coral reef conservation.

珊瑚礁提供价值数十亿美元的商品和服务，但它们极易受到气候变化的影响。 ASA结果，现在有一项重大的研究和保护重点是恢复受损的礁石，并积极协助珊瑚通过辅助进化来适应气候变化。在过去十年中，PI驱动的研究表明，珊瑚礁康复和辅助进化的最有希望的技术之一涉及饲养和驱逐性传播的珊瑚。但是，这种接近受劳动密集型方法和低存活率的限制。珊瑚幼虫传播方法的结果昂贵，限制在小尺度上（10至数百平方米）。因此，虽然我们可以生产出性繁殖的较大的人，以进行珊瑚礁康复并协助实验室或托儿所的进化，但我们需要开发更有效的方法，将珊瑚驱逐到珊瑚礁。 To overcome these bottlenecks, we have developed an innovative technique(the Coralassist Plug) for transplanting juvenile corals that is designed to a) improve handling efficiency during coral sexualpropagation, b) avoid the need for a lengthy nursery rearing period, c) improve efficiency and time to outplant corals to the reef andd) increase early survivorship after outplantation by protecting corals from grazing pressure.在试点试验中，珊瑚式塞子塞的插入量要快得多，要更快地释放并显着改善了IVF产生的珊瑚的生存。该项目旨在为概念测试提供一系列利益相关者的概念证明，以微调设计以提高其有效性，并创建侵犯模型，以将珊瑚礁插头提供为珊瑚礁恢复从业人员，作为珊瑚礁保护的工具。