Living Sea Sculpture Coral Research

Living Sea Sculpture continues our coral research and the innovation of art, science, and technology for coral reef restoration.

Current research: Zoe – A Living Sea Sculpture in Cozumel, Mexico

Solène Jonveaux - Zoe Coral Research Lead Biologist

Solène is a biologist from Bordeaux, France. She studied biology, scientific journalism, and international ecology in France, Scotland, Canada, and Mexico.

In 2022 she finished her master’s thesis in international ecology on Whale shark conservation management.

Solène has participated in coral restoration programs doing construction and design of Acropora coral nurseries, restoration methodology, and project management.

Solène joined the Living Sea Sculpture team in January 2021 to lead the biological research on and around Zoe – A Living Sea Sculpture until 2023.

Her research greatly contributes to our understanding of Zoe’s growth and continues to help us develop new methods and designs for coral transplantation and substrate innovation.

 Volunteers and our dedicated team members worked with her to care for the corals and determine procedures and methodologies to increase coral coverage and marine biodiversity on Zoe and the area. This work is vital for Living Sea Sculpture designs of the future.

We’re so grateful for her expertise, passion, and talent on the team!

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Zoe touches the sea floor copy

Zoe is an electrified artificial coral reef located in Cozumel, Mexico. A DNA-inspired coral refuge. Zoe touched the seafloor on September 28, 2016, and the electricity was started on the 29th. 

This work is made possible by the Zoe Anderson Memorial Fund, Patreon members, coral adoptions, and other private donors.

Investigation

Tagging, mapping, measuring, and monitoring corals

Solène has begun partitioning Zoe into zones A – F and tagging the coral species on the artificial reef and surrounding areas. 

From the smallest recruits to the older big colonies on Zoe, we are counting, identifying, and giving a specific tag number to each coral colony found on Zoe.
 
Each coral will then be entered into our database with its specific tag number and location on Zoe. This will allow us to measure their growth and health on the structure through time. 
 
Thanks to the generosity of Katie Garrison and Patreon members, we have a new specialty Olympus camera dedicated to our coral restoration research. Solène has taken beautiful photos of our 11 coral species for our coral adoptions
Coral restoration project research | Living Sea Sculpture

Solène has been bringing other divers into the team to assist with tagging corals, documenting, measuring, and preparing our objectives to enhance coral coverage and biodiversity with innovative and ocean safe methods to support endangered coral reef ecosystems. 

Zoe Excursion coral restoration course in Cozumel | Living sea sculpture

Rescuing broken corals, mapping, tagging corals… the coral research is growing and progressing.

Coral Research at Zoe - A Living Sea Sculpture
Coral Research at Zoe - A Living Sea Sculpture
Measuring corals for Coral Research at Zoe - A Living Sea Sculpture
Coral Research at Zoe - A Living Sea Sculpture
Coral Research at Zoe - A Living Sea Sculpture
tagging corals for Coral Research at Zoe - A Living Sea Sculpture

Coral Colony Mapping & Measuring

Continuous coral research: We are currently measuring colony area and height of all Agaricia tenuifolia on the artificial coral reef, to compare their growth and mortality between Zoe (electric treatment of 6V) and selected platforms of @coz_coral_reef_restoration (no electrical treatment). This software allows us to set our scale and measure the contour of each colony to calculate its area, a manipulation that we will be repeating for our second measurement period to calculate mortality and growth rate!

We are also mapping all the colonies on Zoe per Zone (A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H), substrate (Mesh, Bar, Foot), orientation, and depth to test the influence of these factors on the variables that are growth and mortality. Having a full map of all the colonies on the whole structure will also allow long-term monitoring of all colonies… and we are working toward a VR (3D immersive) coralized Zoe as an #artsci collaboration with @theimclab.

Zoning, mapping, measuring and 📸 @solenejriv
Stitched image with all zones/photogrammetry @maddensdormouse 

United Nations - Department of Economic and Social Affairs - Sustainable Development

: Zoe Artificial Reef Assessment + Coral Planting

Our volunteer commitment to the UN Sustainable Development Goal SDG14

(Private sector)
#OceanAction43755
department of economic and social affairs - coral conservation and coral planting
Play Video about Monitoring of growth and mortality of Agaricia tenuifolia on Zoe and CDRRP Platforms
Living Sea Sculpture Coral Restoration Project Zones.jpg
Zone A

Colonies 1 - 240

ZONE A

Zone B

Colonies 15 - 222

ZONA B

Zone C

Colonies 28 - 220

ZONE C EXT

Zone D

Colonies 124 - 231

 

 

Zone E

Colonies 53 - 229

Zone F

Colonies 74 - 238

ZONE F EXT copy

Zone G

Colonies 177 - 217

ZONE G EXT

Zone H

Colonies 153 - 198

Zone & Colony Images + Data January 2021

Click the Zone Below to Open the Data Table

Explore More

You can view some of Colleen’s wet-lab coral experiments,  research, and development in our image gallery, and be sure to check out the video galleries.

Learn more about The Zoe Project from conception to installation and everything in between in our image gallery.

Help Support Our Coral Conservation, Reef Restoration & Research Efforts

Purpose:

Living Sea Sculpture Direct Donation
Your contribution will be used to help Living Sea Sculpture’s work to rehabilitate coral reefs

 through art, science, and technology.