Abstract Summary
Reef restoration efforts show successful results in many parts of the ocean. Scale, however, has been very limited. Unfortunately reef degradation and destruction rates are going faster than expected. Scaling up restoration projects are needed to contravene the destruction tendency. The National Institute of Aquaculture and Fisheries in Mexico, together with Mote Marine Laboratory in Florida, USA. are developing a new technique to increase areas of restoration in less time and less costly. To be successful, technique should speed up the outplanting of small colonies, provide high survival rates of fragments, while reducing labor and costs to the minimum necessary. Multiple-cutting technique is seeing as one first possibility to bring the outplanting to greater numbers of colonies, increasing the number of areas in less time and costs. Mainly, it consists in subdividing each fragment of live coral, from a colony previously outplanted in the sea, to produce 5 to 10 more fragments of same genotype, increasing coverage, rugosity and hence biodiversity in restoration sites. This technique responds to the need to comply the Mexican Quintana Roo State government´s goal of outplanting 262 thousands live colonies by year 2020, to mitigate the impact of tourist activities, hurricanes, groundings and climate change. The implementation and ongoing results are presented to analyze the feasibility and potential of this technique in more impacted reef areas.
