This year we start our new project: REACT, which is a french acronym for Tropical Coral Reefs Restoration using Acoustic Enrichment.

Using underwater loudspeakers, we will broadcast ambient sound recorded from healthy reefs onto degraded reefs in Réunion Island, to enhance fish and coral larvae settlement.

The results obtained in Australia and in the Caribbean are extremely promising. This innovative method could be used on its own in degraded ecosystems, but also in synergy with other restoration methods such as mass coral larvae reseeding, artificial reefs installation or coral transplanting.

Our prototype was tested successfully and we are now setting up 9 devices for a first large-scale deployment at the end of the year. We will advertise soon for a post-doc position to work on this project, so stay tuned!

The REACT project is co-funded by the European Union and the Réunion Island Region. We would like to thank them warmly for their support in making this ambitious project possible.