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

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.

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!

03/13/2026

The REEF Lab is powering down for the weekend. Happy Darkness Day! 🖤

Darkness Day is when we shut off all of our tank and equipment lights for a little over 24 hours to help our broodstock acclimate to their spawning schedule which is four hours earlier than local Wilmington time. Many coral species spawn several hours after sunset so this time shift pushes their spawning times up four hours from around 3am to 11pm in some of our species. This time shift saves us a lot of exhaustion during spawning season and helps us get to sleep a little earlier even though we still have some pretty late nights. Our broodstock coral depend heavily on lighting cues to get their spawning timing right so darkness day is like a reset on their internal clocks! 🕓

02/11/2026

Happy International women and girls in STEM day to the amazing women of the REEF Lab!! 🪸♀️

We are so proud of the progress in coral research and restoration made in our lab every day by our fearless leader, Dr. Nikki Fogarty, and our team of employees, graduate students, and volunteers! 🫶🏼

01/07/2026

Happy New Year from the REEF Lab! 🎆

2025 was a very busy year for us full of new successes, opportunities, and challenges. We are so grateful for the growing team of collaborators, employees, students, and volunteers that make our research possible. We're very excited to kick off a new semester and the new year ahead! 🥳

12/24/2025

☃️❄️🪸

Address

5600 Marvin K. Moss Lane
Wilmington, NC
28409

Telephone

+19549623397

Website

http://www.nicolefogarty.com/

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