Abstract Summary
Restoration techniques using sexually propagated corals currently allow cost and labor efficient mass production and outplanting of hundreds of thousands of sexual coral recruits. It is becoming clear however that the effectiveness of these restoration efforts is often limited by the fact that many aspects of species’ reproductive biology and early life dynamics are unknown. For example, the reproductive mode and timing of multiple coral species are still undocumented, preventing the sexual propagation of these species. In addition, early life-history traits (e.g., embryogenesis, larval ecology, settlement preferences, post-settlement development) are extremely variable among coral species, and the implications of this interspecific variability for larval culturing are unknown and potentially demand for specie-specific culturing approaches. During the larval stage, larvae of different coral species display different settlement behaviors and prefer different surfaces for settlement. Furthermore, the recruitment success of newly outplanted settlers not only differs widely among species, but also among reef habitats for the same species. Thus, by including these species specific differences in synergy with environmental factors, current coral larval propagation methods could likely be improved. We compiled new and existing data on species-specific traits associated with the reproductive biology and early life ecology of Caribbean corals to exemplify how natural history studies could help widen the number of coral species that can be reared for restoration purposes and increase the long-term survival and growth of recruits after outplanting. We then make species specific recommendations to improve various steps of the larval rearing process, including gamete collection, fertilization, culture maintenance, site selection for outplanting and outplanting techniques. This information will be made available to coral reef researchers and restoration practitioners in the form of Species Fact Sheets, which will be updated as new data becomes available.
