Four Seasons Team Diaries: June 2024

At Landaa this month, we transplanted 26 new coral frames, kindly sponsored by guests (8), the Resort (17), and online (1), adding 1400 coral fragments to the reef. We monitored (cleaned, repaired, photographed) a total of 394 established coral frames at various sites around Landaa and Voavah.

A total of 20 frames (10 small, 10 medium) were sponsored by a group staying at Landaa, and built in a single day as part of an event held at Voavah. The group engaged enthusiastically with the activity, and we were delighted to see the Voavah reef looking healthy at the time of fragment collection.

To see the progress of your frame, please visit our dedicated Four Seasons monitoring page where we upload new photos every 6 months or so.

Maldives Coral Bleaching Season

Over on our Reefscapers Climate Change page, we are curating the latest global news & research from climate experts and marine scientists worldwide.

Coral Bleaching Watch

We have started to see some recovery of bleached/pale corals as water temperatures decline. Recovery, and re-uptake of zooxanthellae in some colonies has been observed, but most remain fully bleached or dead. Corals of the genus Acropora are bleaching more severely and dying more than other genera as expected, with colonies in shallow water at the Water Villas and Elephant site being the most affected. Bleaching has also been noted in some Pocillopora and massive genera such as Porites, a clear indication of proloned elevated temperatures. Despite our efforts to collect corals from healthy resilient colonies and plant frames in deeper water, we have noted mortality of our most recently planted Reefscapers frames.

Bleaching Monitoring

We are continuing to collect data and take photographs of 100 selected colonies at each of our sites (except 62 at Elephant), with regular monitoring of these colonies since April.

This stacked bar chart shows monthly progression of bleaching (%) following MMRI’s categories for each of the four selected sites since February 2024. For the month of June, an average of 14% of colonies across the monitored sites have been recorded as ‘severely’ or ‘fully’ bleached, and an average of 45% of the colonies monitored are dead, indicating an increase of 25% mortality since May.

We have observed an average of 25% of colonies have recovered across sites since last month, with 40% remaining unchanged, and 35% experiencing a decline in health. At present, the highest recovery (36% since May) has been observed at our deepest site, Anchor Point, with also the lowest mortality levels (31%). House Reef and Water Villas sites have similar rates of recovery (27-31%) and mortality (45-46%). Elephant is our most affected site, with 65% of mortality and only 6% recovery as of June.

The stacked bar chart shows rates of bleaching recovery, no change, and decline towards bleaching/mortality across sites from May to late June 2024.

At Kuda Huraa this month, we transplanted 5 new coral frames, monitored a further 80 mature frames at various sites around the island, and relocated a total of 139 frames from the Channel.

To see the progress of your frame, please visit our dedicated Four Seasons monitoring page where we upload new photos every 6 months or so.

Maldives Coral Bleaching Season

Coral Bleaching

June saw continued mortality of bleached corals around Kuda Huraa and the wider North Malé Atoll. Despite starting the month in the lowest NOAA Coral watch level of ‘no stress’, we are still at a Degree Heating Week of 5. The majority of Acropora spp. colonies across Kuda Huraa have bleached, however, at each site there have been some resistant coral colonies that are showing no signs of paling, fluorescing or bleaching. Although we have seen high mortality rates, some partially-bleached corals of Acropora spp are starting to show signs of recovery at the end of June.

Wild reefs – we have continued our collaboration with our Dive Team colleagues, to assess the bleaching of local dive spots. At dive site ‘Lankan’, famous for its manta cleaning station, we recorded bleached corals at 10m deep (62%), at 15m (53%), and at 20m (39%).

Ongoing Bleaching Monitoring

We continued with our ongoing bleaching monitoring of the 391 colonies on our Reefscapers frames, over 3 species, at 5 different sites around Kuda Huraa.

All corals selected for the bleaching monitoring study were healthy at the start of March. We have been tracking the health of each colony every two weeks, and have unfortunately seen mass mortality and bleaching across all sites. The highest mortality rates have been at shallow sites (<1.5m deep). We have recorded 100% mortality (n=76) at The Channel, and 95% mortality at both the Water Villas (n=57) and Seastar (n=124). The sites with the lowest rates of mortality are at the Shallow House Reef (54%, n=40) and Reef Crest (29%, n=13), where the depth of frames range from 3-6m.

All of the colonies that were 100% bleached earlier in the study have died, and only three sites still have healthy colonies. There is one healthy colony remaining at the Seastar, the Shallow House Reef has 2 colonies, and the Reef Crest has 3. Slight recovery has been observed at the Shallow House Reef and Reef Crest across all three species, and we hope this will continue over the next few months.

The Channel was once our main coral propagation site, as corals thrived here in the shallow waters with strong water currents. But site has evolved over recent years, with reduced water-flow resulting in overgrowth of algae and domination by wild Montipora digitata. Due to the bleaching event this year, we now have hundreds of dead and empty frames which we are removing for recycling (see photos, below).

Team Collaborations

During this difficult time for corals, Reefscapers have collaborated and supported each other from different projects across the Maldives. As all of the Reefscapers locations have experienced mass mortality, we are working together to share knowledge and ensure the future of our conservation efforts. Earlier in the month, Sofia and Kathryn (from Kuda Huraa) spent a day at Sheraton Maldives with project manager, Katelyn. Together, they worked to manage the aftermath of the bleaching event, including frame maintenance, moving and re-mapping frames, and removing dead colonies.

Later in the month, we were joined at Kuda Huraa by Meli and Aku, our Reefscapers counterparts from Landaa Giraavaru. It was a great opportunity to compare notes on research and methodologies, and we greatly appreciated their help with coral work and maintenance of our marine aquaria.