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...

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...

Most coral nurseries focus on in-water growing of fast-growing branching species to relatively small sizes for outplanting; the State of Hawaii has recently implemented an innovative program which combines collection of small (10 cm) live massive forms of coral colonies (mostly from within public ha...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Short video on Project Coral from the Horniman Museum and Gardens.

In coral reef restoration, we do not publish what failed. Which means, everybody is re-inventing the wheel at some point unaware of failed techniques or mistakes done by others. We need to share failures, so as a community of coral reef scientists and practitioners, we can learn what works and what ...

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...

While the coral gardening framework has previously focused on the propagation and outplanting of fast-growing branching species like Acropora spp, the recently adopted microfragging technique has allowed practitioners to expand the restoration toolbox to include massive and encrusting coral species....

In The Bahamas, effective restoration of coral populations to achieve species recovery is likely to require restoration efforts on large scales at multiple sites. While scientists and conservation NGOs are conducting experimental coral restoration at a number of sites and have demonstrated the effec...

Reefs and associated ecosystems serve as barriers, buffers, and breakwaters from rising seas, swell, and storm surge. Until recently, it was not possible to put a value on the flood protection benefits from these nature based solutions. This is changing rapidly, however, and recent studies are showi...

Photomosaics can be a useful scientific tool for efficiently and accurately analyzing large numbers of coral outplants. Coral Restoration Foundation, Inc. (CRF) has developed cost-effective, in-house procedures for creating large-scale (~2,000 sq meters) reef photomosaics of reefs for the purposes o...

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...

Worldwide coral transplantation efforts are being undertaken to restore reefs lost to climate change-induced bleaching and disease. Successful reef restoration efforts to date are limited to shallow depths above 10 meters with fast growing corals, despite the loss of many coral species across a wide...

The ability to monitor the growth and survival of a restored coral is vital for assessing the success of a restoration program as a whole. Information on outplant performance is useful to restoration managers to direct future operations as well as to scientists using such coral to understand ecologi...

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...

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...

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,...

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...

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...

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...

Healthy coral reefs provide coastal protection and natural defenses against climatic extremes. Coral reefs provide up to $30 billion to the global economy, with $9 billion made up by the coastal protection benefits they afford. Recent numerical modelling studies have shown that reefs can reduce wave...

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...