[Coral-List] Coral Reef Restoration in Florida

Dennis Hubbard dennis.hubbard at oberlin.edu
Thu Mar 3 14:09:17 EST 2016


Thanks Andrew:

If all the colonies in the videos are in fact outplants, this is one of the
more optimistic outcomes I've seen. I also think that there is value in the
impact of the mindset of fishers when they are involved in this kind of
thing - regardless of the outcome. I hope this project will continue to be
as successful as it appears to me and look forward to seeing the area in a
couple of years. My recollection of the DB situation pre-80s is that this
is pretty thin cover..... but, that's not a reason to not be optimistic.

Best,

Dennis

On Thu, Mar 3, 2016 at 12:39 PM, Andrew Ross <ross.andrew at mac.com> wrote:

> Dennis,
> Agreed, there is plenty of info on the nurseries (branching, mainly
> Acroporids) but little on the out-planting that is arguably the point of
> the exercise.
> It was a hard-lessons-learned rather than the success story you have
> requested, but:
>
> https://www.researchgate.net/publication/268146804_Genet_and_reef_position_effects_in_out-planting_of_nursery-grown_Acropora_cervicornis_ScleractiniaAcroporidae_in_Montego_Bay_Jamaica
>
>
> Not published but maybe relevant to your query:
>
> https://youtu.be/Y3jyhWnRZlE
> is our out-plant site in the Oracabessa Bay Fish Sanctuary (Jamaica) in
> March of last year (2015). It’s a fisherman-run MPA and coral culture &
> gardening project initially funded by the Goldeney Resort and now by the
> Jamaican Govt and a couple of project-donors. The fishers are currently
> setting up their own dive&snorkel operation to cover their management costs
> in-house, thus avoiding the usual (heartbreaking) gaps.
> Quick note: “They” say that this site was as good as anything in Discovery
> Bay prior to 1980 and apparently hit harder than D-Bay in both Hurricanes
> Allen (1980) and Gilbert (1988). When we started planting in 2012 there was
> no living *A. cervicornis* within 300m of this spot and only three
> browbeaten colonies in the entire bay. *Stegastes planifrons* (3-spot
> damselfish) was essentially absent suggesting a long-time scarcity of
> staghorn coral/habitat. We started propagating in a low-maintenance nursery
> system (mid-water drop-loop, or “clothesline”) in 2009 with about 150
> nubbins, as that’s all that we could take without undue karmic bruising.
>
> https://youtu.be/79uRJHLGijw
> https://youtu.be/V5AVjXo5P1A
> https://youtu.be/gzmkFGe6_Oc
> https://youtu.be/SuN4SDQ0U7A
> https://youtu.be/58aFU16kJ08
> is the same site in January of this year (2016). As you can see, growth
> continued from the previous video; however, the gardening programme
> suffered funding gaps and worms, snails and disease returned while, it
> seems, the summertime hot-water reported for Cayman did impact Jamaica, we
> just didn’t see it. Either bleaching or bleaching-related disease (likely
> with vectors) hit the planting site and nurseries both, with maybe 30% loss
> in the nursery and huge partial mortalities at the plant-site, mainly in
> the colony bases leaving ends alive. Disease is/was continuing into
> January. Three-spot damselfish also had come back with a vengeance
> including copious recruits. We’re debating whether to cut/clean-out the
> dead and re-set the live or just let it haystack- suggestions & comments
> are welcome.
>
> A brief list of lessons-learned:
> * Must have either abundant and diverse fish and shellfish, *as per* Lisa
> Carne’s work at Laughing Bird Key in Belize or, failing that, must have
> people playing the roles of fish and they must be properly incentivized
> and/or motivated as the work quickly gets tedious, tiring, cold and
> itchy/stingy. There are questions of critical mass in planted/established
> material to persist without tending, but my suggestion is to hedge-bets
> with regular & post-impact/event working visits.
> * Try to have at least one or two “stronger" (genetic) lineages if a site
> is to persist through high/low temperature events. The lineages we have at
> OBFS are pretty awful, for example. After a few years of nursery culture
> they’re doing passably with good growth and accelerated healing/attachment
> etc (and likely a bit of spawning, though that may be another problem in a
> warm year), but they still seem to be relatively/excessively susceptible to
> basic abrasion and temperature stresses. NB: these were all that we were
> able to find under a local-augment (rather than restoration *per se*)
> ethos. We will likely take our manta-tows a little further afield in the
> next iteration, and/or try some CARMABI-style facilitated recruitment.
>
> Apologies for being remiss in publishing, with particular apologies to
> those who have been helping and/or pestering.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Andrew
>
>
> Andrew M. Ross, Ph.D.
> Seascape Caribbean
> www.seascapecarib.com
>
>
> On Mar 2, 2016, at 8:48 AM, Dennis Hubbard <dennis.hubbard at oberlin.edu>
> wrote:
>
> Hi all:
>
> We've seen a number of these kinds of documentaries and have all seen
> corals hung on clothes lines seemingly doing will. All the ones I've seen
> have been in passing and, while local dives shops allude to it "working
> great" I have never seen colonies out on the reef unless they settled there
> on their own (lots of small to mid-sized *A. palmata*, for example).
>
> Does anyone have references for papers that describe successful
> "restoration" (i.e., corals growing out, reproducing and starting to create
> even a small "reef community") using any of these methods?
>
> Dennis
>
> On Wed, Mar 2, 2016 at 12:39 AM, Douglas Fenner <
> douglasfennertassi at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Corals in the popular news:
>
> An Atlantic Magazine video on YouTube: "A Breakthrough for coral reef
> restoration"
>
> http://youtu.be/qHKpcnn5Tws
>
>
> Cheers,  Doug
>
>
>
> --
> Douglas Fenner
> Consultant, corals, coral reefs, coral identification
> "have regulator, will travel"
> PO Box 7390
> Pago Pago, American Samoa 96799  USA
>
> phone 1 684 622-7084
>
> Join the International Society for Reef Studies.  Membership includes a
> subscription to the journal Coral Reefs, and there are discounts for pdf
> subscriptions and developing countries.  Check it out!  www.fit.edu/isrs/
>
> "Belief in climate change is optional, participation is not."- Jim Beever..
>  "Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not to their own facts."-
> Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
>
> Sea level is now rising at the fastest rate in 3,000 years.
>
>
> http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/02/sea-levels-are-rising-their-fastest-rate-2000-years?utm_campaign=email-news-latest&et_rid=17045989&et_cid=292592
>
>
> http://mashable.com/2016/02/22/manmade-sea-level-rise-flooding/#fscPLGedCiqz
>
> January 2016 was the hottest January since records began in 1880.  The
> arctic was hottest by far.  This is the 9th straight monthly record heat.
> (hiatus where art thou?)
>
>
> https://www.yahoo.com/news/january-2016-hottest-since-records-began-us-agency-212230867.html
>
> Miami is flooding: "The Siege of Miami, as temperatures rise, so will sea
> levels."  Sea level rising an inch a year there.
> http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/12/21/the-siege-of-miami
>
> website:  http://independent.academia.edu/DouglasFenner
>
> blog: http://ocean.si.edu/blog/reefs-american-samoa-story-hope
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>
>
>
> --
> Dennis Hubbard
> Chair, Dept of Geology-Oberlin College Oberlin OH 44074
> (440) 775-8346
>
> * "When you get on the wrong train.... every stop is the wrong stop"*
> Benjamin Stein: "*Ludes, A Ballad of the Drug and the Dream*"
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>
>


-- 
Dennis Hubbard
Chair, Dept of Geology-Oberlin College Oberlin OH 44074
(440) 775-8346

* "When you get on the wrong train.... every stop is the wrong stop"*
 Benjamin Stein: "*Ludes, A Ballad of the Drug and the Dream*"


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