[Music plays]
(Dr Christopher Doropoulos) We’re here at Heron Island to conduct
some work on the coral spawning event.
We’re investigating the processes that limit coral recovery.
To do that we’re conducting experiments on the land
and in the water.
We’re here with a team of people of about ten,
and that includes staff from CSIRO,
staff and students from the University of Queensland,
as well as two land and sea rangers from the Gidarjil Corporation.
So, the first project is looking at larval supply to the reef,
and that’s a predominately a field based study.
Also with that study we’re using molecular approaches
to try and validate exactly how many larvae are coming onto
the reef and the identity of those.
And to complement the field study we’re also conducting
larval culturing in the lab from which we can sample
specific coral types to understand their molecular signature
as they go through their development.
So, we’ve also brought in a range of coral colonies here,
withholding them down in tanks, and once they spawn we’ll then
capture those and culture them en masse.
Then in a lab we’ll settle those larvae
on the different kind of substrates, plant them out onto the reef,
and let them grow until they’re at a certain kind of stage,
around 1cm which is a juvenile coral.
With those corals we’ll then conduct manipulative experiments
to simulate outplanting in different kind of designs
to see how their survival and growth differ.
Another aim of the project is to look at how thermal stress
affects the fecundity, so that’s the reproductive development,
and then the development of the larvae of corals.
So, down in a mesocosm system we’re simulating future warming events
to see what happens to the reproduction,
and then the developmental phases of coral larvae.
So, coral branches are being held in tanks and sampled over time
to look at how their egg sizes might differ
as well as their spawning times,
and then what happens to those larvae as they develop through time.
(Prof Peter Mumby) These experiments that we’re doing
between One Tree Island and Heron Island
will be very helpful in providing targeted information
on how densely do you need to pack a reef with corals
if you want to restore it, so that that restored population
can actually act in a biologically realistic way.
So, that they can actually reproduce and help deliver new corals
to other reefs, and even sustain their own population
by releasing corals that might actually come back to that same reef.
These are important questions we have to answer.
(Devin Rowell) One of the biggest challenges of working with corals
is obviously that they usually only spawn once a year.
So, a lot of our work is tied to this crucial period of time,
and you have one, maybe two nights where you’re able to
catch them in the act of spawning and use those
gametes for your experiments.
So, we have to be ready to go and prepared for when it happens
because we can’t predict it as much as we try.
(Elizabeth Buccheri) All the collaborations are really cool,
like especially with this group that’s here right now.
We have so many people doing different things
but they’re all very linked to each other and all of the information
is going to be so crucial to telling us more about
reef reproduction and recovery.
The corals are, they’re a very charismatic ecosystem in a way
but there’s still so much that we don’t know,
and especially about reproduction and their early life stage.
A lot of this group is going to give us a lot of information about that
which we can hopefully use to tie to
how we can conserve these ecosystems
but then also eventually restore certain areas that we need to.
And I think that’s super exciting to know more about.
(Isabelle Orchard-McInnes) It’s important to me the knowledge that
I’ve learnt here so I can take it back to Gidarjil
and assist them with their coral monitoring
for the health of the reef so we can continue
with our traditional methods and knowledge
and share it with everyone else.
[Music plays]