To date coral restoration has focused disproportionately on branching species in large scale outplanting projects. These species are chosen because they fragment readily, have fast growth rates, and cover large areas in short periods of time. Unfortunately these traits are linked to species susceptible to thermal stress events. Conversely, massive corals are overlooked because of their slow growth rates, despite many being categorically less susceptible to bleaching stress. Additionally, large scale restoration relies primarily on asexual propagation to produce large clones of few individuals. These clones are established in a diversity of locations but new genetic material is never created during this process. These components are often not included in restoration plans because of difficulty producing such diverse outplants at scale. However, through the use of land based coral nurseries and advancement in methodology including processes such as microfragmentation, unprecedented success with massive species as well as early coral recruits has allowed Mote Marine Laboratory to focus on building resilient reefs rather than replacement alone

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 techniques for growing and outplanting these corals have been thoroughly investigated. Here, we evaluated the suitability of incorporating boulder coral species into in situ nursery propagation efforts to support coral reef restoration activities. We compared the effects of different coral mounting and maintenance techniques on the growth and survival of fragments of three boulder coral species, Montastraea cavernosa, Orbicella faveolata, and Pseudodiploria clivosa. Survival at one-year post-fragmentation was >90% and did not differ significantly across treatment combinations. Growth rates of P. clivosa were significantly higher than M. cavernosa and O. faveolata. Coral colonies mounted on concrete modules located on the seafloor grew faster than those mounted on PVC/fiberglass trees suspended in the water column. Removal of the fouling community surrounding each coral did not significantly affect coral growth or survival. Our results show that the three boulder corals tested can be propagated in offshore nurseries and require little maintenance. The continued refinement of boulder coral propagation can provide the information needed to incorporate boulder corals into coral reef restoration programs.

Microfragmentation is a technique recently developed to accelerate the growth of coral colonies in culture, through cuts of less than 1 cm², with high regenerative capacity. The production of microfragments of the same genotype allows the fusion during their growth, which offers an advantage to increase their size and share resources, which results in greater competitiveness to occupy space and increase their reproductive capacity. The National Fisheries and Aquaculture Institute of Mexico (INAPESCA) currently maintains a standardized production of 1,000 microfragments per month of the massive coral Orbicella annularis, with an initial size between 1cm² to 4cm² of irregular surface, which reach their sizes of 2cm² to 6cm² in 4 months, achieving an increase of its initial area. In order to maximize tissue production in 8x8 cm plates, an experimental design was implemented to evaluate tissue accumulation based on 3 different arrangements that vary in the number of microfragments, distance between fragments and their distribution. These factors were considered for 2 different genotypes and the effect of the perimeter cut is evaluated as a strategy to enhance their growth. To calculate the area and volume, 3D models were created using photogrammetry, using a Nikon Coolpix W300 camera and the Agisoft photoscan V 1.1.6 software. Initial monitoring was carried out on day 1, at 15 days and subsequently every month. The tissue accumulation curves are obtained to evaluate the coating rates in the different arrangements. The improvement of these techniques will allow to change the way of implementing the restoration actions in the reefs, since it will be possible to produce massive colonies from artificial substrates in a much shorter time than the natural ones, and even accelerate the time of sexual maturation, as well as rescue skeletons that, when covered with fabric, can continue contributing to reef accretion.

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 harbors); placing them into the State’s land-based Coral Restoration Nursery where they are micro-fragged and then fast-grown using advanced aquarium husbandry techniques into large-sized (42 cm and 84+ cm) massive colonies in a fraction of the time it would take to occur naturally (in Hawaii, these corals grow 1 -2 cm/year; to grow to 42 cm would take 20+ years in the wild). The resulting large colony modules are then placed onto degraded natural Hawaiian coral reefs in an effort to restore these reefs back towards their earlier ecologically-complex state. The outplanted colonies are evaluated using the State’s Coral Ecological Services and Functions Tool and the resulting offset can be used by developers and Responsible Parties to pay for coral and habitat loss incurred elsewhere in Hawaii. The result is a dynamic program to put out large, live coral colonies, paid for without large expenditures of public monies, and without the extremely long natural recovery rates (one year instead of decades) for large corals normally seen in Hawaii. The program is now expanding to focus on extremely rare coral species to re-introduce them back into the wild using similar mechanisms.

Coral growth is a critical aspect to reef health, resiliency under rapidly changing environmental conditions, and restoration efforts. Although fragmenting has been occurring for many years in an effort to restore reefs, recently it was discovered that microfragmenting, the process of cutting one coral into many small pieces (~3-5 polyps), induces exponential growth. In an ongoing project investigating the growth process, two species of stony corals Acropora palmata and Orbicella faveolata microfragments were examined using timelapse photography both in a tank and under a high-powered dissecting microscope to document which tissues begin and continue exponential growth. The tissues identified will be utilized to determine if the HIPPO pathway is involved in the exponential growth process. The HIPPO pathway is a conserved signaling pathway that is known to regulate organ growth in Drosophila and mammals, including humans. We hypothesize that this conservative growth pathway is initiated upon tissue damage during the microfragmenting process. Although this is an ongoing project, available data and in-progress results will be presented.

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. The purpose of our study was to evaluate the success of different outplanting techniques for Florida massive corals propagated using the microfragmentation technique. Over 350 corals from three main species (Orbicella faveolata, Pseudodiploria clivosa, Pseudodiploria strigosa) were microfragmented, mounted onto ceramic plugs, and allowed several weeks to recover in an off-shore nursery in Miami prior to outplanting onto three reefs. Corals growing on the ceramic plugs were outplanted using three attachment methods: cement pedestals, dead coral skeletons, and direct attachment to the substrate. Individual photos were taken of the corals at the time of deployment, after one month, and after three months. Coral survivorship varied across sites, species, and outplanting method. Reef 1 had 71% survivorship (all corals combined) over 1 month compared to Reef 2 (74%), and Reef 3 (96%). After 3 months survivorship was 64% for R1, 67% for R2, and 94% for R3, showing clearly that most of the mortality occurs within a short time after transplantation. The highest survivorship after 3 months was observed for O. faveolata, (76%), followed by P. clivosa (71%), and finally P. strigosa (46%). The largest source of mortality to the coral outplants is fish predation. A video camera deployed at the time of outplanting recorded both butterfly fish and parrotfish eating the corals hours after outplanting. In an attempt to alleviate predation, large colonies of Acropora cerviconis were planted around massive plots to provide physical protection to the new outplants by limiting fish access. Outplant method affected coral survivorship. The highest survivorship was recorded for corals mounted on cement pedestals (70%), followed by substrate (42%), and skeleton (41%). Genotype also influenced survivorship. Three genotypes of O. faveolata showed very different survivorship patterns (100%, 72%, and 14% respectively after three months). Future studies will focus on developing efficient methods to maximize coral survivorship and minimize the impacts of coral predation.

Reef restoration efforts show successful results in many parts of the ocean. Scale, however, has been very limited. Unfortunately reef degradation and destruction rates are going faster than expected. Scaling up restoration projects are needed to contravene the destruction tendency. The National Institute of Aquaculture and Fisheries in Mexico, together with Mote Marine Laboratory in Florida, USA. are developing a new technique to increase areas of restoration in less time and less costly. To be successful, technique should speed up the outplanting of small colonies, provide high survival rates of fragments, while reducing labor and costs to the minimum necessary. Multiple-cutting technique is seeing as one first possibility to bring the outplanting to greater numbers of colonies, increasing the number of areas in less time and costs. Mainly, it consists in subdividing each fragment of live coral, from a colony previously outplanted in the sea, to produce 5 to 10 more fragments of same genotype, increasing coverage, rugosity and hence biodiversity in restoration sites. This technique responds to the need to comply the Mexican Quintana Roo State government´s goal of outplanting 262 thousands live colonies by year 2020, to mitigate the impact of tourist activities, hurricanes, groundings and climate change. The implementation and ongoing results are presented to analyze the feasibility and potential of this technique in more impacted reef areas.

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 the diversity found on comparable healthy reefs. To meet this objective, effective techniques need to be developed to collect, propagate, grow, harvest, and outplant a variety of target coral species in close proximity to the restoration reefs. Until recently, most restoration work has focused on growing and replanting various species of branching corals, so the production and outplanting techniques that have been developed tend to be mostly applicable to branching corals. Borrowing from the techniques and lessons learned in the marine aquarium trade, scientists working at land based nurseries such as Mote Marine Lab in Summerland Key Florida have developed effective land based techniques for propagating and growing large numbers of several different species of massive corals, and have subsequently pioneered an outplant strategy that makes it possible to consider restoring these species on a large scale. This presentation will focus on techniques developed by a team at the Coral Restoration Foundation to collect, propagate and grow two species of massive corals (Orbicella annularis and Orbicella faveolata) in open ocean nurseries. The techniques and materials are similar to those developed for land based nurseries, but they have been modified so that after the initial collections are processed, all the subsequent propagation and grow-out processes are done in the field using low cost, low tech methods. The presentation will include a summary history on how the techniques were developed, along with a start to finish look at how these two species are being propagated, grown, and harvested in offshore nurseries. The techniques developed are applicable to any coral species, but are especially relevant to the non-branching coral species.

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 initial high survival rate for micro-fragged A. palmata (100%), Fragments of Hope (FoH) also directly outplanted two size classes (1-and 5cm, N= 45 and 16, respectively) of A. palmata onto a shallow fore reef site in South Water Caye Marine Reserve (SWCMR) in April 2017. Since then, additional species have been micro-fragged for in situ nurseries (Dendrogyna cylindrus) and for direct outplanting: A. palmata (Laughing Bird Caye National Park, LBCNP N=118), SWCMR (n=267) and Turneffe Atoll Marine Reserve (TAMR N=954) and O. annularis (TAMR N=55). Here we report on the results to date, and discuss the nuances of calculating survival rate, when directly outplanting micro-fragged corals that are purposely meant to fuse together. FoH is currently using photo-mosaics coupled with CPCe annotation to calculate instead change in coral cover on pre-measured plots in annual surveys. Based on results to date, we are confidant direct outplanting of micro-fragged A. palmata (size classes ≥ 5cm) can rapidly speed up replenishment of large sections of shallow degraded reef in Belize, by eliminating the need for nurseries altogether for this species. We also highlight the need for targeted host genetics diversity using this method and discuss trials planned for other species in Belize and other locations outside of Belize.