Effective Techniques for the Feeding and Ex Situ Culture of a Brooding Scleractinian Coral, Pocillopora acuta

Our lab is interested in understanding climate change, resistance, and resilience in coral and exploring ex-situ aquaculture's role. Specifically, we aim to cultivate coral in a lab that can be used for restoration and research efforts. Over the past few years, we have seen major advances in coral ex-situ aquaculture, including being able to induce reproduction, as well as complete the entire coral life cycle in both broadcast spawning and brooding corals.

Maintaining the long-term reproduction of brooding corals in the lab is usually quite challenging, with reproduction typically stopping after a few months. However, we found that if we culture the colonies together in mesocosm tanks and provide them with supplemental food, they can continue to produce larvae each month. In general, we have a good understanding of how feeding and temperature independently affect coral reproduction, but their interactive effects remain relatively understudied.

For example, heterotrophy may have different benefits, or limitations at warmer compared to cooler temperatures. Using the protocols that we have described, we can effectively feed and culture the colonies long-term in X2 aquaculture systems, and can ultimately track the reproduction at the colony level to help infer the influence of heterotrophy on reproduction, and recruitment in a warming ocean.