Growth study of branching coral Acropora formosa between natural reef habitats and in situ coral nurseries

Abstract

Abstract. Being a common reef building coral in Malaysian waters, growth of Acropora Formosa in natural reef habitat and coral nursery condition had been studied in aspects of extension growth, survival and proto-branch generation. The study sites took place at two separate islands with different environment conditions. In this study, A. formosa samples of natural reefs at Pangkor Island turbid waters recorded better growth in average extension rate (0.71 ±0.48 cm/month) and higher proto-branch generation rate (up to 52% after 6 months) than Tioman Island samples (0.38 ±0.34 cm/month, highest 17% after 6 months). However, Tioman Island natural reef samples maintained 100% survival throughout the study period. Then, branch fragments or nubbins of A. formosa were transplanted into two coral nursery sites at Tioman Island. Among these two coral nurseries, the Tekek site had better growth in all three aspects than Air Batang site. This was believed due to Tekek nursery had been setup with nubbins for more than 6 months before Air Batang nursery, thus the Tekek samples were conditioned long enough for growing in the coral nursery environment. The results of this study documented the growth of this particular coral species in two islands of Peninsular Malaysia, and demonstrated the potential application of A. Formosa for coral transplant, in situ nursery and active reef restoration.

Carbonate budgets induced by coral restoration of a Great Barrier Reef site following cyclone damage

“…during past bleaching events (Marshall and Baird, 2000;Loya et al, 2001;McClanahan et al, 2002;Pratchett et al, 2013;Carroll et al, 2017). However, restoring with slower growing (and architecturally less complex) taxa is likely less beneficial for sites in need of fast recovery in terms of carbonate budgets (e.g., Tortolero-Langarica et al, 2019) and sustaining biodiversity (Lirman et al, 2010;Xin et al, 2016;Nithyanandan et al, 2018;Tiddy et al, 2021), but also where Acropora spp. were preferentially lost during recent bleaching of the GBR (Hoogenboom et al, 2017).…”

Coral Restoration in Palk Bay on the Southeast Coast of India

“…Other reports on different reef restoration programs revealed that the average monthly growth rate of Acropora sp. ranged between 0.16cm and0.67cm (Oliver et al 1983;Clark & Edwards 1995;Putchim et al 2008;Anderson et al 2012;Xin et al 2016). The restoration efforts in Palk Bay resulted in high growth rates for A. muricata and A. hyacinthus, whereas the growth of Pocillopora damicornis was found least in numbers.…”

Reef rehabilitation method uses bio transplants model in Tunda Island Banten Province, Indonesia

“…The process of fragment measurements was conducted with: a) identify the type of reef fragments sampled, namely reef fragments attached to each solid substrate (DC or DCA), then attached to the graft substrate and labeled with cable ties as markers [19], [20], b) Measure the branch length of each graft or fragment using a ruler. Fragments were measured from the base to the branch, the tip with ± 0.5 cm accuracy, and c) observing and counting live and dead number transplants, as well as calculating the increase of branches for each transplant on each substrate [21]. The process of measuring length growth can be seen in Figure 3.…”