Anthropogenic structures submerged in the sea over thousands of years provide hard and longstanding evidence of human influence in the marine environment. Many of these structures were created for purposes such as fishing or tourism, but they may also provide unique opportunities for conservation. T...

Recent back-to-back episodes of heat-induced coral bleaching in Florida and elsewhere have driven the need to test interventions that increase the resilience of restored corals to anticipated future warming. One potential intervention is the application of sublethal doses of bleaching stress to indu...

Hurricanes play a fundamental role in shaping coral reef benthic and fish communities. Long-term degradation and loss of ecosystem persistence and resilience may drive reefs into a permanent state of mediocrity. Mediocre reefs are characterized by slow but progressive homogenization, which may invol...

In 2017, two devastating hurricanes, Irma and Maria, impacted St. Thomas island, part of the U.S. Virgin Islands in the northeastern Caribbean. These hurricanes had enormous impacts on the two coral nurseries operating on the island as well as on outplanted coral communities. Overseen by UVI faculty...

Ecological restoration of forests, meadows, reefs or other foundational ecosystems in the face of climate change depends on the discovery and use of individuals able to withstand future conditions. For coral reef restoration, finding climate tolerant colonies does not guarantee clonal progeny will r...

Intervention strategies to create “climate smart” corals for restoration include manipulating the association between corals and their algal symbionts. In adult corals, “stress-hardening” through controlled bleaching and recovery can shift symbiont assemblages in favor of thermally-tolerant ...

Following the decline of the Caribbean Acropora population, recent evidence points toward a natural population increase of a viable reproductive acropora hybrid, Acropora prolifera. To better understand the physiological variability between hybrid genotypes, and its usefulness in restoration ecology...

Long-term coral reef degradation leads to a significant coral loss and to a net decline in reef accretion, resulting in a permanent state of mediocrity. Such altered reefs have evolved into de facto novel ecosystems characterized by declining biodiversity, impaired ecological functions and services,...

Sulawesi waters is one of the strategic areas for biological network of an organism especially for coral biodiversity. Based on the geographical, its located in the middle of Indonesia and influenced by the Pacific Ocean and Indian Ocean currrent flow and makes it biological information is unique. H...

The Elkhorn coral, Acropora palmata, was the primary reef builder in the western Atlantic over the last 2 million years, however, because of recent region-wide declines this species is now threatened and has prompted conservation/restoration specialists to take new actions. Despite its historical ab...

The ability to predict metabolic deficits in coral holobiont metabolism is becoming increasingly important as water temperatures continue to rise. Physiological sensitivities to acute and cumulative thermal stress were compared in Acropora cervicornis from Broward County, Florida. Dark-adapted chlor...

A progressive decline in seawater pH known as ocean acidification (OA) will result in the reduced growth of numerous species of coral. The threatened staghorn coral Acropora cervicornis was once an ecologically important contributor to reef framework production throughout the Caribbean. Recent wides...

The contemporary distribution of Acropora cervicornis includes dispersed, isolated colonies and very dense interlocking assemblages called thickets that may cover hectares of the bottom. The density of thickets and sessile nature of corals creates the opportunity for ongoing interactions between gen...

Microbiota response within reef invertebrates potentially play a critical role in the holobionts environmental acclimation and ultimately the persistence of populations faced with future ocean acidification and warming. This study aimed to establish the microbial communities associated with early de...

Reef habitat microbiomes play a vital role in coral reef ecosystem health and function. Characteristics of the physical habitat of a reef may help drive the evolution of the host organism, its algal symbionts, and associated microbiomes. In southern Florida in particular, reef marine microbiome comm...