Preservation of settlement tiles RRAP CAD1-1

Updated: 2026-06-01

This experiment was designed to test whether conditioned material for coral larval settlement could be preserved for use at another time or location. It includes two ex situ settlement and rearing trials of Acropora sp. (2022 and 2023) on air-dried, oven-dried, frozen, and freeze-dried tiles. Tiles with live crustose coralline algae were used as a control. The spat from the second trial were reared under either 5 or 50 µmol quanta m-2 s-1 and then deployed to Davies Reef for 1 year to see if the ex situ rearing conditions affected longer-term success of coral seeding. The data collected include larval settlement rates, crustose coralline algal and macroalgal cover, spat survival, and spat size.