The counter-balancing factors of value of coral reef habitat and threats to the habitat serve to emphasize the need to address injuries to coral reefs whenever possible at whatever scale necessary. For the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary (FKNMS), this is as much of a driver for action as the ...

An important objective of any reef restoration program that involves replanting corals onto degraded reefs is developing the ability to not just produce reef competent corals in sufficient quantities to effect change, but to produce enough species diversity and genetic diversity to try to duplicate ...

In 2011, Mars, Inc. set-up a Coral Reef Restoration Program in the Spermonde Archipelago off the coast of Makassar, Sulawesi. With local communities and scientists we developed a simple, effective and scalable way to rebuild a coral reef – the Mars Assisted Reef Restoration System (MARRS). We rebu...

I have visited over a dozen coral restorations programs in 2018, documenting each program's management goals, and propagation and out-planting methods, and learning more about what makes each unique. My qualitative research, including follow-up interviews, shows that each organization uses methods s...

Coral reefs are increasingly under threat from anthropogenic disturbances, and live coral cover has been declining around the globe for the past decades. Halting this trend will require a multi-faceted approach across several scales using a wide variety of responses. Large-scale solutions like curbi...

On Febuary 5th 2010, the Vogetrader ship ran aground on a coral reef off the south west shore of O’ahu, HI resulting in a settlement to provide funding for compensatory coral reef restoration projects. Previous successful emergency restoration efforts have focused on the reattachment of corals tha...

Historically, the transplantation of coral from surrounding reefs has been thought to degrade source areas and jeopardize donor colonies. The Reef Runway Coral Nursery is a novel coral nursery concept designed to aid in coral restoration efforts in response to reef injuries by harboring corals of op...

The environmental crisis faced by scientists and policy makers today is complex, and relentless. Deconstructing these intractable problems into smaller design questions is a common, yet powerful, tool in solving many contemporary, interdisciplinary hurdles. While technological innovation is benefici...

The National Institute of Fisheries and Aquaculture in Mexico is working on a reef restoration project where techniques are developed to optimize the production of coral colonies. In this year, the production of corals has been made by microfragmentation, technique developed by Dr. David Vaughan of ...

Coral reef ecosystems have been in decline in recent decades due to several stressors, both natural and anthropogenic. Due to these significant declines, there has been a need for restoration of many coral species, particularly within the Caribbean genus Acropora. As part of restoration efforts for ...

Monitoring of individual ephemeral coral species such as Acropora cervicornis is difficult because of frequent fragment or displacement, yielding individual colonies nearly impossible to track long-term. However, much of the remaining A. cervicornis exist as low density populations comprised of indi...

Florida Keys coral reefs have experienced seven mass bleaching events since 1987. Many reefs have < 5% coral cover, but some inshore patch reefs have maintained significantly higher coral cover. It has been hypothesized that the inshore corals are acclimatized and/or adapted to recurrent heat stress...

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 ...

Restoring coral populations on degraded reefs using nursery grown corals is an evolving science and an art. A variety of in situ coral nursery and outplanting techniques have been developed around the world in an attempt to “restore” degraded reefs. These techniques often employ a larger central...

Restoration or assisting the recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded, damaged, or destroyed, may become critical in areas without enough intact coral reef habitat left to protect due to climate change, coastal development, pollution, and overfishing. However, restoration decisions are often ...

The long-spined sea urchin (Diadema antillarum) was once an abundant reef grazing herbivore throughout the Caribbean. Benthic surveys in the Florida Keys during the 1960-70s revealed average densities of five to ten individuals per square meter. During the early 1980s, 98-99% of Diadema antillarum p...

Reef restoration efforts are of most importance for those areas of high touristic visitation. Especially when operations occur in great numbers and during peaks hours and holiday seasons. Probability of impacts increases when either compliance level is low or there are surveillance or patrol problem...

The degradation of coral reefs worldwide has accelerated efforts to find cost effective and adequate methodologies for restoring reefs. Coral reefs are declining from rising sea temperatures, massive storm events and vessel groundings. There are several styles of coral nurseries, but there are no st...

The die-off of the long-spined sea urchin (Diadema antillarum) in the early 1980s is a well-studied event in the Caribbean. The loss of this important herbivore lead to significant increases in algal abundance, and consequently, coral reef degradation. Recently, D. antillarum populations have been i...

Despite widespread increases in coral outplanting around the globe, few studies focus on the effects of coral restoration on reef communities or important ecosystem functions like herbivory and coral predation. Here, we measured the impact of coral restoration at four reefs in the Florida Keys, USA,...

Interventions to save coral reefs are deemed critical and urgent to protect these exceptional ecosystems and those who depend on them. Increasing losses in ecosystem services including coastal protection, fisheries resources, and support for tourism and cultural practices have demonstrated the need ...

As coral reef communities throughout the Caribbean continue to degrade, in situ coral nurseries have become a common means to support their restoration. Such efforts have predominately focused on the propagation and restoration of the once-prolific elkhorn and staghorn corals (Acropora spp.) and tec...

Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument (PMNM) is one of the largest protected marine conservation areas in the world. During NOAA’s 2017 Reef Assessment and Monitoring Program expedition to PMNM, Rapid Ecological Assessments (REAs) were conducted to survey fish, coral, and invertebrate abund...

Recent major hurricanes in the Caribbean have emphasized the vulnerability of coastal communities to wave energy from extreme events. Episodic extreme wave energy can not only damage corals (e.g., breakage, overturning) and reef structure (e.g., fractures to reef framework), but also can impact coas...

To predict restoration success requires an understanding of the factors influencing growth and survivorship of coral species. Here we use empirically-derived matrix population models to generate estimates of stage-specific growth, survivorship, and fertility for Acropora palmata, A. cervicornis, and...

Across the greater Caribbean and Florida there are a growing number of programs aiding in the enhancement of coral reefs through coral propagation. As new programs begin or established programs scale-up their efforts there is a need to provide guidance through best management practices and lessons l...

In March 2017, size class experiments for micro-fragments (1-and 5-cm) were set up for two species placed on in situ nurseries (Acropora palmata and Orbicella annularis) and two species directly outplanted to the reef (A. palmata and D. clivosa) in southern Belize. Based on the first month’s initi...

The worldwide decrease in coral cover often reflects the impact of accelerated and poorly planned development of coastal human communities. This is the case of the Pacific coast of northern Costa Rica, which 20 years ago was considered one of the sites with the greatest reef development in the count...

With the decline of hard coral coverage in the Florida Reef Tract, the Coral Restoration Foundation TM (CRF) has been working to integrate the non-Acroporid corals, mainly Orbicella favelota and O. annularis into the restoration program for several years. This process seeks to develop an image-based...

The Australian Government has pledged A$ 100 million over the coming 5 years towards Reef restoration and adaptation science, thus providing a globally significant opportunity to advance coral reef restoration. This program will build on the outcomes from the Reef Restoration and Adaptation program;...