Coral Reef Arks at Biosphere 2: Reimagining Reef Restoration in the World’s Largest Living Laboratory

We chose to bring the Coral Reef Arks into Biosphere 2 because it offers something no natural reef or open-ocean site can: a fully enclosed, climate-controlled ocean biome where we can test, monitor, and refine the Arks under precisely controlled conditions. Unlike in the field, where data collection is limited by weather, visibility, and access, Biosphere 2 allows us to track every aspect of Ark performance—biological, chemical, and microbial—continuously and in real time. It’s the only place on Earth where we can systematically manipulate key environmental variables like temperature, pH, light, and nutrients, giving us critical insight into how Arks perform under future climate conditions. This level of precision transforms Biosphere 2 into a living testbed for accelerating reef restoration science at global scale.

We have initially deployed a single Arks in the Biosphere, but will be installing four more in the next two months, and will be installing >20 Arks in the Biosphere 2 Ocean over the next year.

Inside Biosphere 2, we are monitoring Coral Reef Arks at a level of detail and continuity that’s impossible in the open ocean. Using a combination of high-frequency sensors, autonomous imaging, genomic sequencing, and manual surveys, we’re capturing fine-scale changes in coral health, fish behavior, microbial communities, water chemistry, and reef accretion; all within a fully enclosed, controllable ocean system. This setup allows us to track not just outcomes, but the full ecological process of reef formation: how life colonizes the Arks, how ecosystems self-organize, and how resilience emerges over time. The ability to manipulate conditions like temperature, acidity, and nutrient levels, while simultaneously monitoring biological response in real time, gives us an unprecedented window into reef dynamics—at a scale large enough to be ecologically meaningful and a resolution fine enough to reveal the hidden engines of recovery