Super Reefs Open House set for today at Maui Ocean Center

A Super Reefs Open House will be held from 5:30 to 7:45 p.m. today at Maui Ocean Center Marine Institute. The event will feature short talks, demonstrations, touch tanks and refreshments.

To RSVP, send email to ewight@tnc.org and tiara.stark@tnc.org.

Open house participants include:

• Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on 3-D underwater weather, including temperatures, flow patterns and waves; and larval and sediment dispersal.
• Stanford University on what water temperatures coral colonies can withstand, based on coral thermal or heat stress testing.
• The Nature Conservancy and community partners on using these insights to apply impactful community-led marine management and restoration.

As ocean waters continue to warm due to climate change, some corals — indeed entire reefs — may not survive, according to an event announcement. Some coral communities are more tolerant of heat than others.

“We need to find them, restore them and propagate them to ensure our reefs survive and thrive: these are the ‘Super Reefs’ of the future,” it says.

The Nature Conservancy is working with scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Stanford University to bring high performance computer modeling of Maui’s underwater environment and thermal or heat stress testing to the Olowalu reef on Maui. Olowalu is a 939-acre reef that was recognized as a Mission Blue Hope Spot in 2017, harbors the largest manta ray population in the US, and it serves as a “mother” reef, providing coral larvae to reefs in Lāna’i, Moloka’i and West Maui. 

Woods Hole models, in 4-D (3-D with time) can identify the areas across Maui’s reefs most likely to host temperature tolerant corals. Stanford researchers have developed a simple, low-cost method to test these predictions using a tank, pump, cooler, heater and temperature controller. Once the heat tolerant corals are located, the Woods Hole team conducts larval dispersal simulations to determine which Super Reef sites are best situated to re-seed neighboring reefs with heat-tolerant larvae. They also run future projections – out to 2050 – to ensure today’s Super Reefs can survive future warming. The Woods Hole team is working to make these tools available via cloud-hosted Digital Twin software.

The Nature Center and Stanford team are collecting small samples of the corals that are currently thriving in warmer water at eight sites across West Maui, including Olowalu. The coral samples are brought to shore where they undergo a four-day heat stress test to assess how they respond to warmer water. The tests provide immediate feedback to ensure coral reef conservation and restoration at Olowalu focuses on temperature-tolerant corals that are most likely to grow and thrive in warming seas.   

Local organizations and college students are helping with the heat stress testing so they can use the technology to help identify thermally tolerant coral reefs at Olowalu and in other areas of Maui Nui. Integrating this climate information with other science, Hawaiian knowledge and practices, and local expertise is essential to effective community-led management and coral restoration to ensure the Olowalu Reef thrives into the future. 

The following Maui-based partner organizations are receiving in-depth training on coral heat stress testing and helping to lead local coral heat stress testing trials:

• Hui o Ka Wai Ola – https://www.huiokawaiola.com/
• Maui Ocean Center Marine Institute – https://mocmarineinstitute.org/
• Maui Nui Marine Resource Council – https://www.mauireefs.org/
• Kipuka Olowalu – https://kipukaolowalu.org/
• Pacific Whale Foundation – https://www.pacificwhale.org/
• Save Honolua Coalition – https://www.savehonolua.org/
• University of Hawaiʻi Maui College – https://maui.hawaii.edu/programs/marine-options-program/

Hawaiʻi’s coral reefs are essential to life: they provide homes for reef fish; protect shorelines from storm surge and rising sea levels; and support Hawaiʻi’s people, culture and island lifestyle. Economically, reefs provide $836 million in flood protection, $13.4 million in reef fish that feeds local families, and more than $1.2 billion in reef-related tourism annually.

But an increasing population, nearly 10 million visitors a year, land-based pollution, overfishing and warming waters chronically stress reefs. Scientists documented up to a 60% loss of living coral cover in some areas by 2012 and an additional 30% loss statewide following the 2015 marine heatwave. As reefs have declined over the past century, Hawai‘i has also lost up to 90% of some of most valuable nearshore fisheries.