Coral Sea Foundation

We pride ourselves on science-based, objective reporting on reef condition in our region, regardless of whether the news is good, bad or ugly. So we are absolutely thrilled to share these survey images of the vibrant coral community at Daromia Reef, just 20km from Port Moresby, the national capitol of Papua New Guinea, collected two days ago by the awesome Sea Women of Melanesia Inc.-PNG team. These fringing reefs had exceptionally high coral cover and coral biodiversity, indicating they have not suffered any major stress events in the last 5 years or so, and this represents an incredibly important cultural, social and biological resource right on the doorstep of Port Moresby. The Sea Women team collected over 500 geotagged high-resolution images from these reefs and these have already been uploaded to our ReefCloud.Ai system for analysis, highlighting the importance of active reef monitoring by Indigenous traditional owners and the power of AI and digital technology to quickly produce detailed results that can effectively inform management. In many parts of PNG and other Pacific nations, large sums of money are being thrown at small-scale, ineffectual reef "restoration" programs, to the detriment of funding and support for community-based Locally Managed Marine Areas which sustain both fisheries and high biodiversity reefs like these. Melanesian people depend on the sea for their food and livelihoods, and they cannot eat a farmed staghorn coral fragment! We continue to advocate for and support Locally Managed Marine Protected Areas as the most effective tool for sustaining both fisheries, ecotourism, and marine biodiversity in the face of climate change. coralseafoundation.net seawomen.net The Sea Women of Melanesia Inc. work across PNG is supported by: Coral Sea Foundation Steamships Limited PNG Sall Family Foundation Whitley Fund for Nature National Geographic PRISTINE SEAS INC Kristin Lindblad and the Wanderlust Fund Jock Clough Marine Foundation Swire Shipping

Sea Women of Melanesia Inc. team leader Naomi Longa joined the National Geographic Society PRISTINE SEAS INC expedition and visited her clan island of Harengan, on the western end of Manus, Papua New Guinea. The team found found great numbers of fish in the Locally Managed Marine Area created by Naomi in partnership with the local community in 2020 - another demonstration of the effectiveness of of the female-led Sea Women of Melanesia Inc. program and win for grassroots marine conservation in the Coral Triangle waters of PNG!

We used ReefCloud.Ai to analyse changes in coral community composition at our reef survey sites around Yunbenun, Magnetic Island, before and after Tropical Cyclone Kirrily. The cyclone impacted the island on January 25th 2024, and we found that there were large variations in reef damage between bays on the island, with some reefs hardly affected, and other severely damaged. Thankfully, our ongoing surveys have show that the corals in all bays are starting to recover. You can view the full report here: https://lnkd.in/gZBZSmnx Survey methodology is here: https://lnkd.in/gzjM5zT8 Coral cover estimates were calculated by ReefCloud.Ai within minutes of survey imagery being uploaded, and this work highlighted the usefulness of A.I. based image analysis systems for quickly extracting coral cover information from complex reef survey images. Many thanks to our Coral Sea Foundation team members Rhea Arya and Constanza Celis for the data analysis and report preparation. coralseafoundation.net #coralseafoundation #reefsurvey #cyclonekirrily #reefmonitoring #reefcloudai #coralreef #coral #marinescience #marineconservation #yunbenun #magneticisland #greatbarrierreef

Outstanding work!!

Evidence is accumulating that some corals are adapting to heat stress.....

Are staghorn Acropora corals on the #greatbarrierreef evolving tolerance to thermal stress and bleaching events faster than other Acropora coral growth forms? On our recent expedition to Jiigurru, Lizard Island, we re-surveyed several shallow sites that suffered high mortality of Acropora corals in last summer's bleaching event. At these sites, table and corymbose (bushy) colonies were previously the dominant growth forms, with staghorns in 3rd place (see the 2023 pics in this post). Yet now when we look at which colonies survived in the worst affected areas, it is clear that the staghorns suffered proportionally less mortality than the others - they are now the dominant surviving Acropora growth form! Staghorn corals are one of the fastest growing and earliest breeding corals, and so it is exactly in species with these characteristics that we would expect to see the first signs of natural adaptation and evolution to the heat stress bottlenecks that are now becoming increasingly common as climate change accelerates. We will take a deeper dive into this topic when we fully analyse the 2024 survey data - stay tuned! Reef surveys were conducted during the 2024 Lizard Island Coral Reef Study Tour - an initiative of the Coral Sea Foundation and the Lizard Island Reef Research Foundation. CoralSeaFoundation.net #coralseafoundation #coralreef #Jiigurru #lizardisland #coral #coralbleaching #reefalive #tooprecioustolose #marinescience #marineconservation

Another site at Jiigurru, Lizard Island, that seems to have escaped major coral bleaching mortality from last summer's heat stress event on the #greatbarrierreef is Big Vicki's patch reef, on the western margin of the island. The majority of table and bushy Acropora colonies have survived at this location, and the other types of corals are unaffected. Presumably better water flow at this site helped the corals stay below the mortality threshold, but once again it is interesting that sites on the oblique reef front between Palfrey and South Island, about 1000m away, had much higher mortality of table corals in particular. Images were collected during the 2024 Lizard Island Coral Reef Study Tour, an initiative of the Coral Sea Foundation and the Lizard Island Reef Research Foundation. coralseafoundation.net #coralseafoundation #coral #coralreef #greatbarrierreef #Jiigurru #Lizardisland #marinescience #marineconservation #reefsurvey #reefalive

Our recent reef surveys at Jiigurru, Lizard Island, on the northern GBR, showed spatially variable patterns of coral mortality linked to the heat stress event in January and February 2024. Some sites had hardly any dead corals, while others were heavily affected. As we showed in previous posts, sites only 100m apart could have quite different patterns of coral mortality, but one thing that was fairly consistent was the high degree of mortality of Acroporid corals, especially those with table and bushy morphologies, on the shallow reef crests and reef flats around the windward sides of the island. This post graphically illustrates this effect, from one of our permanent photo monitoring sites at North Point, where you can see the extensive mortality, but also that some colonies survived. It is likely that the extra solar radiation at these shallow depths contributed to corals popping over the mortality threshold, and it is interesting that the species most affected were the rapidly growing pioneer species that settled en-masse at these sites after the 2016-17 bleaching event. Many of us had questions about the resilience of these corals and whether they had inherited any extra thermal tolerance from their parents, and in this case the answer seems to be the minority perhaps, but not the majority. It will be interesting to see whether the next wave of juveniles will settle onto the abundant dead table coral skeletons, as these are not very stable and start to fall over within a year or two. Coralseafoundation.net #coralseafoundation #Jiigurru #lizardisland #greatbarrierreef #reefsurvey #coralbleaching #marinescience #coral #coralreef

Today the focus of the Lizard Island Coral Reef Study Tour was identifying reef invertebrates, and we took advantage of ideal conditions to dive the entrance channel bommie at Jiigurru, Lizard Island. The regular currents here provide an ideal place for plankton feeding inverts and fishes and we saw a great variety of creatures during this study session. The Lizard Island Coral Reef Study Tour is an initiative of the Lizard Island Reef Research Foundation and the Coral Sea Foundation, and this year the group is composed of science and biology teachers from various schools in NSW, who are deepening their knowledge of coral reef ecosystems in order to enhance their own teaching programs. Coralseafoundation.net #coralseafoundation #Jiigurru #LizardIsland #greatbarrierreef #marinescience #marineconservation #biodiversity

Can you believe these pictures were taken less than 100m apart, on the same reef, on the same day, at the same depth? These images were taken today at Jiigurru, Lizard Island, on the North Reef. The dead corals perished in the bleaching event last summer, but what we are seeing underwater now is extremely different patterns of mortality between areas only a few tens of meters apart, that seem to be linked to tiny differences in water temperature and water flow between different sections of the reef. Corals in shallower areas, and in areas with less water flow, seem to have tripped over their mortality thresholds during the bleaching event and died, whereas other corals that were slightly deeper, or had slightly better water flow, appear to have survived. By and large the Acropora corals with table and bushy morphologies appear to have suffered the worst, yet staghorn Acropora corals appear to be evolving tolerance to heat stress events, and they are often the only Acropora to survive on the shallow reef flats which experienced the most heat stress. Further evidence for the complexity of reef ecosystems and the important role of reef monitoring surveys to help us understand just how the Great Barrier Reef is coping with climate disruption and progressive ocean warming. And another reminder that the GBR is certainly not all dead - even in areas like this that were impacted by bleaching, there are countless thousands of corals that survived and will contribute larvae to the reef recovery process. Lizard Island Reef Research Foundation coralseafoundation.net #coralseafoundation #coral #coralbleaching #coralreef #reefsurvey #reefalive #reefmonitoring #marinescience #marineconservation #Jiigurru #LizardIsland