Overview
- Twelve institutions joined a coordinated spawning operation off Key Largo to collect eggs and sperm, perform assisted fertilizations, and share laboratory capacity for large‑scale propagation.
- Teams reported producing more than 1.5 million embryos that yielded over 61,000 elkhorn larvae and roughly 47,000 staghorn larvae, distributed to partner labs for grow‑out.
- Scientists conducted 116 directed genetic crosses from 25 elkhorn and 36 staghorn genotypes and reported cryopreserving about 350 vials of sperm to create a genetic bank for future restoration work.
- The work was funded by a multi‑year NOAA Re5 grant and carried out under permits from the Office of National Marine Sanctuaries with partners planning to return juveniles to nurseries and begin outplanting to nearby reef sites in roughly two years.
- Restoration is urgent because natural reproduction has largely failed: fewer than 150 elkhorn and about 300 staghorn colonies remain on Florida’s reef, and long‑term success will depend on larval survival, grow‑out results, and reductions in heat, disease, and local stressors.