Coral culture, Enhancement, Restoration.
Elkhorn (Acropora palmata) coral fragments in culture in preparation for a beach redevelopment programme.
Corals are colonial animals, each made up of many semi-independent polyps. To carefully clip away a few such polyps, one may grow them in a nursery to develop a new colony.
In 2004, our Dr Andrew Ross developed the buoyant mid-water line (BDL) nursery for the in situ culture of coral fragments under Jamaican conditions. A combination of the methods of Bowden-Kerby and Shafir, this system provided predictable high survivorship and high growth rates per nursery propagule or fragment, opening doors to commercial use.
A staghorn (Acropora cervicornis) nubbin in culture, healing from cutting.
High-production nursery culture of Staghorn (Acropora cervicornis): a new nursery.
According to client goals, site and project logistics, target species and morphologies, Seascape Caribbean and our technical and design partners have expanded upon the lessons-learned with the BDL and tangents therefrom to have developed three patent-pending methodologies.
A Elkhorn (Acropora palmata) coral out-planted to the reef from nursery culture.
Research publications and IP: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Andrew_Ross19