Malaysia's Super Corals

September and October are busy months for us at Coralku: annual surveys need to be performed, data loggers need to be retrieved before the monsoon season starts, the coral nurseries need a final prepping-touch too, and all our outplants need to be surveyed. Next to all this, we launched our new project: Malaysia's Super Corals.

Let's start with basics, what are super corals? We define super corals as corals who have superior heat tolerance. This means that these corals stand a better change to survive marine heatwaves and climate change. Therefore, we are championing the search for Malaysia's Super Corals, to harness natural resilience for restoration.

Together with our partners from Project PULIH, Triton Ocean Exploration Society and the University of Konstanz, we embark on a journey to find super corals, and answer some of the most understudied, yet most impactful, questions in coral restoration: what is the extent of heat stress tolerance in Malaysian hard corals? How universal is such thermal tolerance across reef sites and environments? Are these species amenable with our restoration practice and goals?

All of the above need answering, and we started by investigating the Blue Coral Heliopora coerulea, to further test the hypothesis of whether non-lethal marine heatwaves can be drivers of adaptation.

Initial insights were interesting, and we are poised to continue this research in February 2023 after the monsoon season. A sneak peek is available on our social media - link below:

https://www.instagram.com/p/Ckf3IduJl9k/