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 chlorinated firebreaks) as well as more innovative techniques (amputation and relocation, antibiotic delivery mechanisms, removal for treatment and safe housing in aquaria). Success of treatments has varied with environmental conditions, size of lesions, and species. Though some treatments show short-term success, all intervention actions are currently being conducted at the level of individual lesions. Ideas for scaling up to colony or potentially reef-level treatments are considered in a cost-benefit and risk management scenario, balancing the known outcome of doing nothing with the unknown outcomes of novel treatment effects.

Since 2014, the Florida Reef Tract has been experiencing a major disease event affecting over 20 species, with up to 80% mortality, that spans from Martin County to the northern extent of the Lower Keys. A multi-agency collaboration is responding to the event. One intervention is to "rescue" fragments or small colonies of still-healthy individuals of susceptible species to provide genetic preservation and a stock source for future restoration activities. Beginning in August 2018, the rescue will include collection of fragments or colonies of putative unique genets of priority species from multiple habitat strata across the reef tract. When possible, replicates of each genet will be collected or subdivided for distribution to multiple housing facilities to spread risk. Collections will be transported to a network of land-based and in-water nurseries for gene banking and propagation, for future reintroduction back to the Florida Reef Tract. Since a goal of the project is the maintenance of genetic diversity of the affected species, an additional component may include the development of genetic markers for genotyping and tracking genets. This unique effort builds off a similar rescue effort for the threatened Pillar coral, but is precedent setting in its scope and scale, given the large number of species being rescued.

The Florida Reef Tract (FRT) is the third-largest barrier reef ecosystem in the world, extending from the St. Lucie Inlet in Martin County to the Dry Tortugas. In 2014, an unidentified coral ‘tissue-loss’ disease was first observed in Miami-Dade County and quickly spread throughout the northern areas of the FRT. The outbreak has since progressed slowly and persistently south of Miami and through the Upper and Middle Keys, reaching the Lower Keys by April 2018. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) is partnering with NOAA Fisheries, Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, and Florida Department of Environmental Protection to design and implement the Florida Coral Rescue Plan (FCRP), in order to prevent the ecological extinction of the most susceptible coral species along the Florida Reef Tract and to maintain as much genetic diversity as possible for all rescued species in preparation for restoration and future disturbances. FWC geneticists, adopting a targeted amplicon sequencing (TAS) approach, intend to develop robust panels of SNP-based genomic markers for approximately 25 prioritized species and to conduct TAS genotyping assays of collected corals in furtherance of FCRP activities. Genet status will be genetically determined for all rescued colonies and a relational Genet Registry database (FWC-hosted and managed) will be established, allowing for diversity assessment and facilitating colony tracking, propagation, and outplanting. To inform subsequent restorations in Florida, additional collections will be performed throughout the FRT for all ‘brooder’ species on the priority list and their natural levels of genetic connectivity will be determined. Lastly, FWC will develop, maintain, and make available ‘DNA banks’ of cryopreserved genomic DNA and surplus tissues for all species collected. Legacy data products from the work (i.e., whole-genome reference libraries and annotated SNP accession data) will be of tremendous value to other Caribbean coral conservation efforts.

The health and resilience of coral reefs are dwindling as reefs are confronted by a suite of stressors: elevated seawater temperatures, eutrophication, overfishing, pollution, and disease. In 2014, a new coral disease was first reported off South Florida (USA) and has since spread across the Florida Reef Tract. This disease, known as Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD), is characterized by significant and rapid tissue loss and can infect more than 20 species of coral. Among the most susceptible corals are slow-growing massive corals, though levels of susceptibility are species-specific and vary. Given the susceptibility of massive corals to SCTLD infection, a major concern among management agencies is the effect of SCTLD on massive corals outplanted along the leading edge of the disease front (i.e., invasion zone). The goals of this proposed study are to determine the vulnerability of land-grown massive corals to SCTLD within the invasion zone and to measure the utility of time-lapse remote underwater video (TRUV) systems in monitoring the corals post-outplant. The experimental design will be implemented in two regions of the Lower Florida Keys, one area within the disease front (invasion zone) and one area not yet affected (vulnerable zone). Leveraging existing coral restoration efforts will allow for the outplanting of corals through time, while monitoring of the outplanted corals will be accomplished by activities proposed in the study. Study results will directly inform coral reef restoration by clarifying the role and potential risks of outplanting massive corals in the face of the disease outbreak.