First Caribbean cultured Diadema sea urchins are great news for coral reef restoration
Dutch Caribbean Nature Alliance (DCNA), Van Hall Larenstein
The long spined black sea urchin, also known as Diadema, has been absent on most coral reefs throughout the Caribbean, since 99 percent of all populations died because of an unknow disease in the early 80s. Before the die-off, these sea urchins were the main herbivores in the Caribbean, scraping off and eating seaweeds. After the mass mortality, Diadema sea urchin populations never really recovered and most reefs nowadays are dominated by macroalgae. Restoring Diadema populations is therefore seen as key priority in Caribbean coral reef management.
Culturing Diadema and releasing them in the wild would speed up the recovery of this keystone species. Unfortunately, breeding Diadema is very difficult, due to the sensitive nature of the larvae. It has been tried several times, especially in Florida, but despite some successes, a consistent method was never developed. A new culture method was developed in the Netherlands in 2020 by researchers from University of Applied Sciences Van Hall Larenstein. This method makes it possible to consistently culture Diadema from tiny larvae to juvenile sea urchins.
In July of this year the research team moved their culture efforts from the cold and not so tropical Netherlands to the Dutch Caribbean island of Saba, in an attempt to culture juveniles near the reefs where they are much needed. With help of the Saba Conservation Foundation, the first larvae have successfully been cultured and settled, resulting in the first nineteen Caribbean cultured Diadema sea urchin juveniles! The first nineteen cultured Diadema are raised in captivity until they are big enough to release in the wild, where they can graze away the algae that are smothering the corals and prevent new corals from settling.
The next step is to upscale cultivation. Over three thousand larvae are currently being cultured. If this approach is proven to be effective on Saba, it can be copied throughout the Caribbean. By removing their most important competitors, Diadema sea urchins can help coral reefs to cope with other stressors like climate change and pollution.
More information can be found here, or contact researchers Tom Wijers or Alwin Hylkema.
Text: Dutch Caribbean Nature Alliance
Photos: Tom Wijers and Alwin Hylkema; Hans Leijnse