Be sure to read our monthly updates from Marine Savers – direct from our resident teams at
the Marine Discovery Centres at Landaa & Kuda Huraa – our long-term partnership with Four Seasons Resorts Maldives.
Landaa Giraavaru
At Landaa during March, we transplanted 30 new coral frames, kindly sponsored by guests (13), the Resort (15), and online (2), adding ~1600 new coral fragments to the reef. These new frames were positioned mainly at both the Whale Tail and Charlie’s Head sites. We also monitored (cleaned, repaired, photographed) a total of 127 frames at all sites around Landaa Giraavaru.
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.
Coral Spawning, Maldives (March Full Moon)
We performed monitoring night snorkels around the Full Moon period (14 March) and our teams successfully observed coral spawning in 29 colonies of 6 different species.
Of the 29 colonies, 18 had been tagged in March 2024. New colonies were tagged with unique “LGM…” IDs and photographed (wide, mid, close, and corallite-detail shots). These are stored in the LGM ID database for species identification. Eleven new colonies were added to the massives database this month.
Coral Settlement Experiment
1 November 2023 – Gametes from 2 Acropora secale colonies were settled ex situ. After a year of growth, 10 recruits were fitted into concrete ‘cookie’ moulds.
October 2024: 5 recruits were outplanted onto the House Reef (2m–5m depth), with monitoring photos taken. One recruit was caged to protect it from predation. The others were predated within two weeks.
November 2024: Remaining 5 recruits were planted under small experimental frames. One died, but four continue to grow well.
Our lab-grown coral recruits settled on a ‘cookie’
Healthy coral growth after 5 months
Kuda Huraa
At Kuda Huraa this month, our coral experts monitored 96 growing coral frames, and transplanted 9 new frames, kindly sponsored by guests (3), the Resort (5), and online (1).
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 Maintenance
We have observed some coral colonies at our Shipwreck restoration site being overgrown by a calcareous, coral-killing sponge known as Chalinula nematifera. To preserve unaffected colonies, we removed healthy coral from these frames and transplanted them onto frames closer to Deep Anemone Rock. Sponge-covered frames were flipped into the sand to smother the sponge and prevent spreading.
After noticing paling in some colonies in the Shallow House Reef, we moved frames slightly deeper to the Pyramid restoration site and arranged them into lines for easier monitoring and spawning research. This will also allow for a step-down system, where frames start at optimal shallow depths for fast growth, and are gradually moved deeper as colonies mature, helping to protect them from future bleaching events.
Chestnut Biopolymers’ Biodegradable Cable Ties
We’ve been working Chestnut Biopolymers for the last 3 years, to develop new solutions for attaching our fragmented corals onto Reefscapers coral frames. Read about the new trials on our Cable Ties page.
Corallivores
This month, we encountered record numbers of corallivorous starfish, although corallivorous snail counts were lower—likely due to reduced survey effort as the team focused on spawning research. Crown-of-thorns starfish (Acanthaster planci) were observed at all restoration sites, and we have designed a new injection apparatus to cull multiple individuals per dive. More than 10 coral colonies were found completely devoid of living tissue due to predation, adding stress to the reefs that are still recovering from last year’s bleaching.
The lower number of gastropods likely reflects fewer nighttime surveys rather than a population decrease. The expanding Montipora digitata patch in the channel and water villa sites appears to be a corridor enabling Drupella migration.
Coral Spawning
Before the March full moon, we conducted gamete checks on multiple Acropora species across our restoration sites. White and pale oocytes were found in 9 species (17 colonies), and pigmented oocytes in 1 colony. Spawning checks were conducted over 15 nights during the full and new moon periods. Massive genera such as Galaxea and Goniastrea were also monitored, but no spawning was recorded.
Bleaching Study
As we approach the warmest few weeks of the year, seasonally elevated ocean temperatures have already started to cause heat stress and coral paling. Our new study will monitor four coral growth forms across four depth ranges (1–3m, 4–6m, 7–9m, 10–12m). At each depth, we will monitor 39 colonies across 13 species, photographing them every two weeks until the potential bleaching season ends. The four growth forms have been selected to assess susceptibility and resilience :
- Digitate: A. digitifera, A. humilis, A. gemmifera, A. torresiana
- Caespitose: A. tenuis, A. vermiculata, A. secale, A. latistella
- Arborescent: A. muricata, A. microphthalma, A. robusta
- Plating: A. hyacinthus, A. cytherea
