Four Seasons Team Diaries: January 2025

At Landaa this month, we transplanted 62 new coral frames, kindly sponsored by guests (48), the Resort (14), and online (0), adding ~4400 new coral fragments to the reef. These frames were positioned at our new sites: ‘Whale Tail’ site (house reef) and ‘Sea Wall East’. The Sea Wall area has been exhibiting new natural coral recruits that are thriving, perhaps due to the fast water flow.

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

Sea Wall East Frames – Coral Rehabilitation and Thermo-Tolerance

🗓️ January 2023, a corporate group visiting Landaa kindly sponsored the construction of 35 medium-sized coral frames. Initially planted at Sea Bar, these frames were later relocated to the ‘Elephant’ site to benefit from improved water flow.
🗓️ April 2024, the global coral bleaching event led to the mortality of these frames.
🗓️ September 2024, we started a large-scale recycling project, to remove any dead corals and attach healthy new fragments. These rehabilitated frames were subsequently repositioned along the edge of the sea wall, where the increased water flow is expected to enhance coral resilience against future marine heatwaves.
🗓️ January 2025, the same group returned to Landaa to sponsor an additional 36 medium coral frames. Many members enthusiastically helped to transplant the new frames, and place them into the water… all 36 frames within a single morning! Given the health of the 2023 frames, we decided to plant the 2025 frames nearby at ‘Sea Wall East’ (opposite the main pool).

To populate these new frames, ~2700 coral fragments were sourced from the ‘Blue Hole’ and ‘Spa Blue Hole’ sites. These donor colonies had previously demonstrated high thermo-tolerance by surviving the severe bleaching event of April 2024. Additionally, their acclimatisation to the environmental conditions of the island’s northern side and the semi-enclosed sea wall area further supports their likelihood of long-term survival.

Approximately one third of the coral fragments were harvested from a single exceptionally large Acropora aspera colony at the ‘Spa Blue Hole.’ This colony was selected due to its substantial size, ensuring minimal ecological impact despite extensive fragmenting. We know that A. aspera is one of the easier species to handle, allowing for efficient transplantation; additionally, using a single donor colony simplified storage and transportation logistics.

At Kuda Huraa this month, our coral experts transplanted 10 new coral frames. During monitoring, we actively seek and remove known corallivores that eat the living corals (this month: 6 crown-of-thorns starfish, 2 cushion starfish, 347 corallivorous snails). This month, we also conducted 20 hours of underwater monitoring over 5 days, looking for signs of coral spawning.

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.

Coral Propagation Training Programme

This month, we hosted Sharnietha (Marine Biologist at Club Med Kani) for a 5-day training session. Our coral propagation training programme was hands-on and very comprehensive, covering topics such as: fragmentation techniques, frame building, how to take good monitoring pictures, genotype tracking, data collection & entry, QGIS overview, in-water maintenance, diagnosing & troubleshooting past problems.

Coral Maintenance

The Channel – With the reopening of the Channel site to guests during the festive season, this month we focused our efforts into repopulating frames in this area. The conditions at this site are not conducive to the survival of Acropora species, therefore we transplanted Porites cylindrica and Pocillopora meandrina fragments as they grow well here (despite the low flow of water, and increased sand movement). We have been monitoring how these fragments adjust to their new environment throughout the month, and so far they have been responding well. We will continue to monitor their progress into the new year.

Water Villas – We are pleased to report that the Montipora foliosa fragments from last month appear to be adapting well to their new environment! Due to this success, we have continued repopulating frames at this site with Montipora foliosa and also Pocillopora verrucosa. We have noticed the emergence of a few juvenile Acropora colonies, and some transplanted fragments of Acropora muricata are slowly regaining their symbionts. This suggests that conditions at this site might be improving, and therefore we will continue monitoring fragment survival in the coming months.

Coral Spawning

Mid-month, we conducted gamete checks on species which have previously spawned in the Maldives during December. Several colonies of Acropora tenuis were found with highly pigmented eggs, suggesting that these colonies might spawn during the December full moon. We conducted spawning checks around this period, but no spawning was observed (or inferred by missing eggs). These colonies remain gravid, so it’s possible they may spawn in the coming weeks.

Resilient Corals: Genotype Experiment

🗓️ During November, we transplanted coral fragments from resilient natural colonies of Acropora vermiculata onto our frames at various sites.
🗓️ This month, we identified wild colonies of Pocillopora verrucosa and Pocillopora eydouxi on the reef flat behind the Blue Hole which had survived the bleaching event. As these wild colonies are found relatively far apart, we can assume these corals are of different genotypes from one another. We labeled the colonies and collected fragments to transplant onto frames (at the same sites), so we can monitor their progress in challenging conditions.

In addition to challenging these resilient corals, we want to ensure that we protect them too. To do this, we are following the same method as described, but outplanting frames at sites with conditions ideal for coral growth. This will hopefully ensure that we preserve these genotypes during more severe bleaching events that are almost certain to occur in the future. This work to both challenge and protect resilient corals will continue into the new year.