Microfragmentation: A Breakthrough Technique for Coral Restoration

What is Microfragmentation?

Microfragmentation is a cutting-edge coral restoration technique that involves cutting coral colonies into tiny fragments — often just 1 cm² pieces — and then reattaching them to restoration sites or coral nurseries. Pioneered by Dr. David Vaughan and his team in the early 2010s, microfragmentation was discovered almost by accident, when small coral pieces unexpectedly began growing up to 25 times faster than normal.

This method works especially well on massive, slow-growing corals like brain, boulder, and star corals — species that can take decades or centuries to mature naturally on reefs.

Why Does Microfragmentation Work?

Accelerated Healing and Growth

When corals are cut into microfragments, each tiny piece ramps up its healing process. Because corals are colonial animals, the individual polyps at the edges of these fragments release growth hormones that trigger rapid tissue expansion. When fragments from the same genetic parent are placed close together, they recognize each other, fuse back into a single colony, and grow even faster — a process called resheeting.

Maximizing Surface Area

By dividing a single coral into dozens or even hundreds of microfragments, restoration teams massively increase the number of growing edges — the part of the coral that adds new skeleton. More growing edges mean faster coverage of restoration sites.

Clonal Reproduction of Resilient Corals

Fragments can be taken from corals that have survived recent bleaching events or shown tolerance to heat stress. By propagating these resilient corals through microfragmentation, restoration practitioners can help seed reefs with corals more likely to withstand future climate impacts.

Cost-Effective Restoration

Microfragmentation allows coral nurseries to produce large numbers of corals from limited parent colonies. This efficiency reduces the costs of restoration and speeds up the ability to cover large degraded reef areas.

Proven Results

Studies and projects around the world — from the Caribbean to the Pacific — have demonstrated microfragmentation’s effectiveness:

• Coral colonies grown from microfragments can reach sexual maturity in as little as 2–3 years instead of decades.

• Coral cover on degraded reefs has increased significantly where microfragmentation has been used, bringing back habitat for fish and other marine life.

• Corals propagated this way have been successfully outplanted at scales from small pilot projects to large restoration campaigns.

Our work

At Global Coralition, microfragmentation is a key tool in our coral restoration strategy. By combining this fast-growing technique with our cultural sculptures — which serve as artistic, stable substrates for coral outplants — we aim to restore reef habitats quickly while engaging local communities and raising awareness about ocean conservation.

We’ve build a land-based coral farm in Sosua, Dominican Republic at the ISLA Academy. Our farm is run by Melf, a local Dominican aquarist.

We currently have a few hundred corals growing in the tank that are outplanted each month. We are hosting educational tours at the farm regularly.

Our microfragged corals are planted onto these pyramid structures that surround Atabey

Overtime, the corals will fuse together and cover the surface of the pyramid.