Robot revitalising the reef 'like spreading fertiliser on your lawn'
An underwater robot has spread baby coral around the Great Barrier Reef to help repopulate the ailing natural wonder.
Scientists, led by Southern Cross University Professor Peter Harrison, collected millions of coral eggs and sperm to produce more than a million larvae.
They then used Queensland University of Technology professor Matthew Dunbabin's robot, dubbed RangerBot, to sprinkle the babies in damaged parts of the reef - just like a crop duster.
The new technique was trialled at Vlasoff Reef, near Cairns in north Queensland.
Professor Harrison said it was the first time researchers had been able to capture coral spawn on a big scale.
“With further research and refinement, this technique has enormous potential to operate across large areas of reef and multiple sites in a way that hasn’t previously been possible," he said.
The robot can carry about 100,000 coral larvae per mission and there are plans to scale up to millions.
Professor Dunbabin developed RangerBot to help control the coral-killing crown-of-thorns starfish, which is responsible for 40 per cent of the reef’s decline in coral cover.
“During this year’s trial, the robot was tethered so it could be monitored precisely but future missions will see it operate alone and on a much larger scale,” Professor Dunbabin said.
“Using an iPad to program the mission, a signal is sent to deliver the larvae and it is gently pushed out by LarvalBot. It’s like spreading fertiliser on your lawn."
The researchers plan to build even larger mega spawn-catchers and solar-powered floating incubation pools in 2019.