Coral Line by: Louis, Nikolas, Viggo Beecham
Coral Type: Digitate
Coral species: Acropora nasuta
Note: An incredibly beautiful coral with bright purple tips, this one is growing at a growth rate of 15mm per quarter and has a survival rate of 68%. It is strange that the first 31 fragments in the line are all alive and healthy, whereas 18 out of the last 25 fragments have unfortunately died. The line became infected by white syndrome- a coral disease- and this is likely the cause of most of the mortality. Since then, the line has stabalised and is growing really well!
2 year update: Whilst i have not been able to update your graph (coming soon!!) I am so happy to report that this is still an excellent line! During the El nino induced bleaching event of 2016, we lost more than 80% of the coral on our house reef. We made the decision to leave the lines in the nursery so as not to induce any extra stress on the colonies during this delicate time. We moved the lines a little deeper, as you can probably tell from the picture. As a result, you will see that the more shallow (therefore warmer) ends of the lines actually died, whereas the middle parts (deeper and cooler) fared much better. Your survival rate will have dropped again by a little, but the colonies that are still alive are growing beautifully. See right for a few photos. It is interesting to compare your line with line 025, which is of the same species and suffered from the same disease, but completely bleached and died. Your line is now the only place I have seen this species alive in the local area since the bleaching event, so these colonies are very important to re-seed our damaged reef. We hope they will spawn soon, providing new genetic material that we hope will possess the same resilience that this genotype clearly has against warming events- making for a stronger reef in the future! Some colonies from your line were sent to the Four Seasons resort at Kuda Huraa to kick start their re-growth program as they had no Acropora nasuta at all.
