Reproduction and Evolutionary Ecology-Fogarty Lab

Name: Reproduction and Evolutionary Ecology-Fogarty Lab
Address: 5600 Marvin K. Moss Lane, Wilmington, NC, 28409, US
Telephone: +19549623397

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Reproduction and Evolutionary Ecology-Fogarty Lab

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Coral REEF lab at the University of North Carolina Wilmington

With the worldwide decline of coral reefs, it is crucial to understand how reduced coral densities from anthropogenic stressors influence the reproductive success and resilience of this ecosystem. The Reproduction and Evolutionary Ecology-Fogarty lab uses a multidisciplinary approach of fieldwork, laboratory experiments, and molecular biology to answer ecological and evolutionary questions related to coral reef ecology and marine speciation. We are particularly interested in how density dependent mechanisms of reproduction will influence invertebrate population recovery, as well as spawning synchrony, reproductive isolation, and speciation.

09/28/2026

September Spawning Update‼️

In the first week of September, we monitored for spawning activity in our Orbicella faveolata (OFAV), and Pseudodiploria clivosa (PCLI) colonies. In total, we observed spawning from 9 of 9 OFAV colonies and 10 of 13 PCLI colonies resulting in an estimated 1.1 million OFAV larvae and 171,000 PCLI larvae initially produced. We were able to ship an estimated 200,000 total larvae to partners in Florida, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Texas. We had amazing OFAV settlement rates and many tiles with hundreds of new settled recruits.

September Spawning Update‼️

In the first week of September, we monitored for spawning activity in our Orbicella faveolata (OFAV), and Pseudodiploria clivosa (PCLI) colonies. In total, we observed spawning from 9 of 9 OFAV colonies and 10 of 13 PCLI colonies resulting in an estimated 1.1 million OFAV larvae and 171,000 PCLI larvae initially produced. We were able to ship an estimated 200,000 total larvae to partners in Florida, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Texas. We had amazing OFAV settlement rates and many tiles with hundreds of new settled recruits.

September Spawning Update‼️

In the first week of September, we monitored for spawning activity in our Orbicella faveolata (OFAV), and Pseudodiploria clivosa (PCLI) colonies. In total, we observed spawning from 9 of 9 OFAV colonies and 10 of 13 PCLI colonies resulting in an estimated 1.1 million OFAV larvae and 171,000 PCLI larvae initially produced. We were able to ship an estimated 200,000 total larvae to partners in Florida, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Texas. We had amazing OFAV settlement rates and many tiles with hundreds of new settled recruits.

September Spawning Update‼️

In the first week of September, we monitored for spawning activity in our Orbicella faveolata (OFAV), and Pseudodiploria clivosa (PCLI) colonies. In total, we observed spawning from 9 of 9 OFAV colonies and 10 of 13 PCLI colonies resulting in an estimated 1.1 million OFAV larvae and 171,000 PCLI larvae initially produced. We were able to ship an estimated 200,000 total larvae to partners in Florida, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Texas. We had amazing OFAV settlem

08/29/2026

In the first week of August, we had four nights of Acropora cervicornis (ACER) spawning resulting in an estimated 15,000 larvae! This may not sound like very much compared to the hundreds of thousands of larvae we typically produce for our other species, but this is very exciting for us for a few reasons:

- Our adult ACER colonies have been hit or miss with spawning success in previous years, but this was the best year we've observed from them yet in terms of number of colonies spawned, amount, and synchrony.

- This species generally produces very small gamete bundles compared to our boulder coral species meaning fewer eggs available and therefore fewer embryos can be made.

As for research, Krista Laforest (PhD candidate) was able to continue collecting data for her work on s***m motility and velocity. We were also able to share approximately 9,000 larvae with parthers at NOAA Hollings Marine Laboratory in Charleston for some of their experiments. The remaining larvae we kept for general settlement and growout. Since we did not see any spawning from our OFAV or PCLI colonies in August, we are anticipating that September will be a pretty big month for us!

08/25/2026

We're hiring a technician for our collaborative FCR3 grant project with Newfound Harbor Marine Institute/Seacamp!! 🌊

Priority application deadline is August 26th! Please share with anyone who may be interested!

07/17/2026

Exciting new publication! ☀️🔬

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aquaculture.2026.744328

This paper combines the work of teams from Nova Southeastern University, the Florida Aquarium, MOTE Marine Lab, and our team at UNCW to determine the ideal light spectrum for optimizing growth of coral recruits through a NOAA Ruth Gates Coral Restoration Innovation grant. From our team, this combined the work of Dr. Fogarty (PI), Louis-Pierre Rich (former lab manager), Meg Van Horn (former MS student), and Tyler Pratt (current MS student) over two years with two separate rounds of experiments. Teams reared Pseudodiploria strigosa, Colpophyllia natans, and Montastrea cavernosa coral recruits under a natural light spectrum, white-based "Reef Mimic" spectrum, and a blue-based "AB+" spectrum at variably increased intensities and tracked growth, survivorship, and microbiome (of water and coral tissue) over seven months post-settlement each year. They found that artificial light improved growth overall compared to the natural light treatment, and that different species demonstrated different growth rates under each spectrum suggesting a species-specific approach when choosing a light spectrum for aquarium systems. Amazing collaborative work from all teams!!

06/01/2026

Happy World Reef Awareness Day!! 🎊🪸

Recently, we've had a ton of new followers so if you're new, thank you for your interest in our work and here's an overview of the types of things we focus on! Specifically, we focus on land-based coral spawning in four priority species (designated by the state of Florida based on disease risk and ecosystem necessity) and researching strategies to maximize coral propagation at every life stage. Our PI, Dr. Nikki Fogarty, has over 25 years of experience in coral propagation and we have an amazing team of technicians, graduate students, and undergraduate students that make it all happen! Land-based coral spawning and propagation is a relatively small but expanding field, and we're lucky to be able to contribute in so many ways and collaborate with other amazing organizations working on the same goals of reef restoration & resilience! 💪🏼

05/27/2026

It's finally time for a DLAB spawning update! 🎊

Between May 14th and 15th, we had 9 of our colonies spawn brining our total for this year up to 10 of 13 colonies! We produced five batch crosses between the two days with a total of approximately 542,000 larvae. We were able to send approximately 188,000 larvae to partners in Florida. After our experiments and shipments, we settled 3,753 recruits for future growout.

An undergraduate student, Katie Rowley, (mentored by PhD student Krista Laforest) received a UNCW SURCA grant to conduct a research project. Katie and Marrianna Alfonso (undergraduate student) were able to run a pilot of a fertilization success experiment over 2-hour timepoints and with different s***m concentrations. She used 1,200 total gamete bundles from four colonies and will be scoring fertilization success in her crosses soon! They plan to rerun this experiment in the second half of spawning season to incorporate some additional species!

Tyler Pratt (MS student) was able to run a first round on his tile conditioning duration and light intensity experiment to try to maximize larval settlement success. Tyler utilized the help of many of our volunteers to help count larvae and score his settlement. He will be using DNA sequencing to determine the diversity of bacterial biofilm he was able to culture on these tiles in addition to analyzing his settlement success data soon! Tyler also plans to rerun this experiment in the second half of spawning season.

Krista Laforest (PhD student) was also able to continue data collection on s***m motility and velocity in each of the individual DLAB colonies that spawned. Krista also used in different s***m concentrations in parallel to Katie and Marrianna's experiment to replicate the dilution factor of s***m as they travel further distances between colonies with future reef degradation. Krista has been working on the s***m motility and velocity project since August of 2024 and will continue to collect valuable data on our individual broodstock colonies that spawn each year. Their s***m motility and velocity can tell us a lot about their overall health and fertilization potential.

05/04/2026

All five of our graduate students plus one of our undergraduate students were able to present at the CMS Student Symposium last Friday! This Symposium was a great opportunity for our students to connect with CMS researchers from other disciplines and showcase the variety of projects going on in our lab. Amazing job, everyone!

- Ali Zelaya (MS)- thesis proposal overview talk
- Paige Shackelford (MS) - thesis proposal overview talk
- Tyler Pratt (MS)- thesis proposal overview talk
- Ellyn Darke (PhD)- specific chapter overview talk
- Krista Laforest (PhD)- specific chapter overview talk
- Madison Harper (Undergraduate)- Internship poster

04/23/2026

Mabuhay! Our CORDAP team returned to the Philippines last month to visit collaborators at UPMSI. Dr. Fogarty, Ellyn Darke (PhD Student), and our fellow grant partners attended a workshop in Manila with local scientists and stakeholders to foster conversation around the future of gene-editing in coral, mirrored to one hosted by our team in August. They then spent two weeks in Bolinao to help with coral spawning, and with the help of our former lab manager, Louis-Pierre Rich, they were able to install a lunar and solar lighting system to hopefully help colonies spawn more synchronously inside their hatchery! We are so grateful for the most gracious hosts and another successful trip to progress grant objectives!

04/20/2026

Exciting new publication! 📏

Dr. Fogarty, Meg Van Horn (former MS student), and fellow UNCW collaborator Dr. Tracy Chen in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics partnered with high school student and primary author, Richard Zhao, to design and utilize a time-saving AI tool that we call COAST (COral Area Sizing Tool). The COAST model that uses AI to measure the surface area of coral settlers that have been photographed using microscopy. Before the creation of this tool, our volunteers would trace and measure these photos manually, but this model saves us so much time!

Additional shout out to Celia Leto from MOTE for providing additional "ground truthing" images. https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/26/8/2291

04/17/2026

We are so proud of our graduate students who presented at the Graduate Student Symposium today! Congratulations on this milestone to Paige Shackelford (MS), Ellyn Darke (PhD), Tyler Pratt (MS), and Krista Laforest (PhD)! 🎊

GSS is an opportunity for our graduate students to share their research proposals with the Biology & Marine Biology department to receive valuable feedback and suggestions at a midpoint to their defense. Everyone had incredible presentations, and we are excited to continue these projects in the coming months!

Address

5600 Marvin K. Moss Lane
Wilmington, NC
28409

Telephone

+19549623397

Website

http://www.nicolefogarty.com/

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