078

Coral species: Acropora sp.

Notes: Unfortunately due to this year’s El nino event many of our coral lines have been affected by coral bleaching and many coral fragments have died as a result. You can see the paling effect of coral bleaching in the 6 month photograph and notice how the corals have regained their colour by 9 months. Unfortunately for this line, about 50% of living fragments were lost due to the warming event. The surviving fragments are now very healthy however, and whilst this high mortality is not good news, this data is still really important for our research.

Update, July 2021: the remaining fragments have been transplanted to the natural reef and while this line suffered a high mortality rate during the mass bleaching event in 2016, some colonies survived which is great news because it means that they will pass on their resilient genes to future generations of corals on our reef! For this reason it was an important line to transplant and it now provides a new home for many marine species around Gili Lankanfushi!