Harnessing coral connectivity for an effective management and enhancement of Red Sea coral reefs in Saudi Arabia

In Saudi Arabia, extensive and rapid coastal development is currently taking place, in line with Vision 2030 objectives for the country economy, with a strong focus on high-end Red Sea tourism. However, Saudi Arabia Red Sea (SARS) coral reef management initiatives and Marine Protected Area (MPA) planning are currently being established without any actual knowledge of coral genetic connectivity patterns in the basin. The overarching aim of this project is to provide novel fundamental and time-critical insight of coral connectivity for the SARS in support of coral reef conservation, restoration, and enhancement. We propose to obtain a suite of connectivity patterns for seven Scleractinia reef species in five different areas of the Red Sea comprising the Gulf of Aqaba, Shushah Island, Al Wajh, Thuwal, and Al Lith, for a total sampling effort of 700 tissue biopsies. Following a target-enrichment protocol of ultraconserved elements (UCEs) and exon loci, population genetic structure will be inferred, and population-based networks and barrier analyses will be performed to highlight the geographic areas with pronounced genetic discontinuity between populations within each species, and to identify potential source and sink populations. Composition of zooxanthellae communities associated with the selected species and populations will be retrieved using next generation sequencing of the ITS2 rDNA gene. Symbiodiniaceae genotypes will be identified with the ultimate goal to interpret the Symbiodiniaceae community spatial variation patterns in relation to their hosts’ connectivity. Results will be linked to a coral reef connectivity modelling system, which will simulate the dispersal of coral larvae based on the Red Sea circulation. This connectivity model will allow us to simulate the coral larval dispersal among the five proposed coral reef areas and infer the corresponding connectivity patterns. The model also represents a tool to investigate connectivity patterns for the coral reefs of the entire Red Sea. Overall, the retrieved notion will inform and support science-based decision making for the management and enhancement initiatives in Saudi Arabia.