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Despite the low hard coral cover of the transplantation site, survival of the coral transplants after 230 days was high (overall 71.1%), with the great majority of these showing no signs of mortality (branching corals 72.9%, massive & encrusting corals 60%). Water conditions appeared quite favorable to coral growth, which raises the question of why previously coral cover was so low with so much dead coral present. It may be that substrate mobility limits the natural rate of larval recruitment, or that natural or anthropogenic impacts have reduced coral cover to a greater extent than might otherwise have been the case.

The trial provided experience that should benefit future reef rehabilitation efforts in Vietnam. It proved possible to transplant corals successfully using cheap, readily available tools and materials, but the task would be accomplished more easily and effectively if other materials could be made available (e.g. alternatives to the use of springs). Transplantation should be done in March and April so that the coral fragments have time to adhere to the substrates before they are subject to the effects of winter storms and wave action. Nevertheless, the experiments showed that coral transplantation can be of a framework reef.

Nguyen Van Hieu