Colombia’s largest coral rehabilitation project is currently taking place in the Archipelago of San Andres, Providencia and Santa Catalina, Colombia. This Archipelago, a pluri-ethnic territory, is part of the Seaflower Biosphere Reserve and comprises an MPA with the same name. The Archipelago’s ...

Crown-of-thorns starfish (CoTS) cause widespread loss of hard coral cover on reefs across the Indo-Pacific. CoTS outbreaks are considered to be one of the major threats facing the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) and might be expected to have a significant influence on the success of coral restoration progr...

The Great Barrier Reef is a global icon facing unprecedented pressure from climate change, back-to-back bleaching and Australia’s historical attachment to coal. Securing the public debate over the long-term health of the reef is a battle between environmental advocacy groups and industrial growth....

Caribbean ecosystem with its diverse habitat is a goldmine for biologists, environmentalists and tourists. While the coral reefs hold extensive value as they are hotspots for diverse species, the Biogenic reefs with the sandcastle worm add to their survival. These are the Sabellariid polychaetes tha...

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Recent efforts to combat coral reef decline have focused on increasing resilience by reducing local stressors, but these management strategies alone are insufficient. In each U.S. State, Territory and Commonwealth with coral reefs, there are corals that are already locally stress-adapted, thriving i...

Tropical cyclones cause great damage to coral reefs due to the rupture of coral colonies and the transport of materials from land. Recovery actions that are implemented immediately after this kind of events reduce the probability of death of several damaged colonies. In order to minimize the impact ...

When significant marine habitats such as coral reefs are damaged by vessels, a Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) is typically performed to enumerate the extent of the injury and determine the appropriate scale of primary and compensatory restoration. Resource Equivalency Analysis (REA) is on...

The juxtaposition of the continental U.S.’s only living bank-barrier reef with the significant South Florida population center of over 6.5 million people presents unique challenges for resource managers. Expanding commercial and private development combined with necessary infrastructure repairs to...

On or around January 12-14, 2016 the M/V Tatoosh, a Cayman Island Flagged 303 ft. pleasure craft, caused extensive injury to coral reef habitat in shallow water 13-17 m depth in the West Bay Coral Reef Replenishment Zone off Seven-Mile Beach, Grand Cayman. The injury was caused by the deployed ancho...

Corals are dying at an unprecedented rate and concurrently natural ecosystem processes on reefs are being degraded. Many restoration efforts focus on increasing the abundance of corals and fish, but fail to restore some of the processes necessary for the persistence of reefs. Coral recruitment is a ...

Coral restoration projects have been established to facilitate the recovery of coral throughout the Florida Keys. To optimize coral restoration success, identifying the ecological conditions and habitats that promote coral survival need to be identified. Since herbivory is one of the most important ...

Florida’s corals have suffered tremendous recent declines from climate change (bleaching) and disease, and there is an urgent need to safeguard remaining genotypic diversity from further loss. Because gametes cannot yet be reliably collected and/or cryopreserved, field gene banks must be created t...

Coral reef restoration is gaining considerable momentum globally in response to the threat of climate change and associated coral bleaching. In Australia, as part of the Reef Restoration and Adaptation Program (RRAP), a range of interventions are currently being investigated to help the Great Barrie...

As stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD) leaves extensive mortality in its wake across the Florida Reef Tract, a slew of intervention techniques have been trialed in efforts to protect infected colonies. Laboratory and field tests have explored traditional treatment options (smothering and chlorin...

Coral restoration is gaining momentum globally in response to stressors such as bleaching and disease. Along with restoring threatened species and ecological condition of reefs, there is growing interest from a variety of sectors for restoration that supports specific social benefits (e.g., tourism)...

Coral reefs play an important role in coastal protection and reduction of risks derived from climate events. Reefs dissipate wave energy, reduce storm surge and maintain shoreline elevation, protecting coasts from erosion and flooding. Several ecological, geological, and oceanographic factors contri...

The widespread decline of coral reefs stems from a variety of local and global stressors affecting reef structure and function. Much attention has been paid to restoring stony corals as the architects of reef structure. However, in the Mesoamerican Reef coral cover has increased over the last decade...

Population declines of Acropora cervicornis, largely a result of bleaching and disease, led to its 2006 listing as Threatened under the US Endangered Species Act. Unfortunately, natural recovery of populations through fragment regeneration and sexual recruitment remains inadequate to offset populati...

Documenting the history of reef restoration is important because it allows us to understand our past and be more informed to take action in the future. The great men and women in our history were innovators who responded to crisis and went against convention. In the early 1900’s there was pioneeri...

In the Caribbean, there are numerous organizations propagating corals in nurseries for use in restoration and population enhancement. The most common species is Acropora cervicornis followed by Acropora palmata, both of which are listed as threatened under the US Endangered Species Act (ESA). The ES...

The Great Barrier Reef’s back-to-back bleaching events (2016/17) have seen a shift towards more interventions and restoration project to save the Reef. With traditional media still holding gatekeeper roles, the Twittersphere has become an ideal space to debate the merits of Reef restoration resear...