Post by Southern Cross University

Newly published research led by our PhD researcher Conor Hendrickson shows that spraying seawater into fine mist can shade coral, thereby delaying/reducing bleaching stress. The laboratory-based study also showed that shading from seawater fog can help speed up the recovery of corals that have already bleached. These results are promising for coral reef restoration efforts. While previous coral shading techniques, such as shade cloths, have been trialled, they are inherently limited to smaller scales of several dozen square metres. Shade cloth is well suited to protect smaller areas such as coral nurseries. On the other hand, seawater fogging has the potential to be scaled to much larger areas near the size of a small reef (1–2 km2). Other researchers at Southern Cross and QUT, supported by the Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program, have been trialling large-scale fog machines in the field on the Great Barrier Reef, but it is unclear how much fog must be generated to provide enough shade to protect the coral during stress events. Conor built a miniaturised version of the full-sized fogging array to test different fog levels on coral in a more controlled setting. The first laboratory trial experiment found that a 20% reduction in light intensity from the fog had variable effects and the benefit was less clear. A second experiment found that increasing the density of fog to a 30% reduction in light intensity reduced the risk of coral mortality by 55%, improved coral colouration and photosynthetic health, while also helping speed up the recovery of coral after they had bleached. Conor Hendrickson is originally from the United States but came to Southern Cross (Lismore campus) to study a Bachelor in #MarineScience and Management in 2019. Conor has since completed Honours at Southern Cross, also on coral conservation, and has recently submitted his PhD thesis entitled “Evaluating coral fogging as a mass bleaching intervention tool and improving optical measures of pigmentation”. Conor's supervisors are: Brendan Kelaher, Daniel Harrison and Peter Butcherine. Learn more: https://lnkd.in/gVdU9mqg #GBR #GreatBarrierReef #coralbleaching #RRAP #CoolingandShading #ReefRestorationandAdaptationProgram #coralreef #coralbleaching Reefs and Oceans research cluster

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