[Coral-List] Comments on two recent threads.

Thu Sep 20 16:29:50 UTC 2018

John,

great comments.

Answering your concerns about coral reef restoration:

"I have a number of reservations with regard to "reef restoration",
but I will only mention one with regard to the word "restoration".

SFT: Coral reef restoration is a subfield within the larger scientific discipline of ecological restoration (also known as restoration ecology). Ecological restoration is the process of assisting the recovery of an ecosystem that has been degraded, damaged, or destroyed (Society of Ecological Restoration, 2018; https://www.ser.org/).

To me “restoration” implies at least two things:
1- you know what the reefs was like before whatever problem you are trying to recover from
occurred;

SFT: Agreed. It is critical to define the baseline, the reference coral reef in space and time that you are using to compare the results of the restoration action. Do we want to go back to how coral reefs were in that specific location exactly before the degrading event happened? 10 years prior? 50 years? 100 years? It's critical to define the baseline prior to initiating restoration.

2- you are going to restore, not just those easy to propagate
Acropora sp, but all the species that were there including other hard
corals,  sponges, soft corals, etc etc.
SFT: Agreed. Restoration cannot be focused on single species, unless they were in that location prior to degradation (i.e. Acropora sp. thickets that were once very common in Caribbean coral reefs). We need to focus on a multi-species approach to coral reef restoration, on corals, but also on other species.

I have explained the need of an ecosystem-wide approach to restore coral reefs, specifically joint restoration of giant clams and corals in Indo-Pacific coral reefs
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2017.00097/full

"I see no evidence in the  "restoration" literature that the goal is to "restore".
SFT: We quantified significant increases of new coral settlement and recruitment at a multi-species restored coral reef in Seychelles, which is indicative of the first steps restoring ecological function. This paper was part of a larger project aimed specifically at restoring ecological function at a degraded coral reef.
https://natureconservation.pensoft.net/article/8604/

<><...<><...<><...

Sarah Frias-Torres, Ph.D.
Twitter: @GrouperDoc
Science Blog: https://grouperluna.com/
Art Blog: https://oceanbestiary.com/

________________________________
From: Coral-List <coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> on behalf of John Ware <jware at erols.com>
Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2018 10:33 AM
To: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
Subject: [Coral-List] Comments on two recent threads.

Dear List,

I have held off for quite a while but now I want to mention some things
that have been on my (admittedly) engineering mind with regard to two
recent threads:

1- With regard to current papers not acknowledging previous work, the
following is, I think, an excellent example.  Bob Buddemeier and Daphne
Fautin published the paper "Coral bleaching as an adaptive mechanism: a
testable hypothesis" in 1993 (BioScience 43(5) 320-326).  At the time
this was a remarkable insight and was the subject of considerable
controversy and even led to substantial debate at a special conference
on the topic organized by Ove Hoegh-Guldberg (June 2005 in Puerto
Morales where I defended the ABH because Bob and Daphne could not be
there).  Now there are hundreds of papers (it seems) looking at
speciation in zooks and related topics that do not mention Bob and Daphne.

2- I have a number of reservations with regard to "reef restoration",
but I will only mention one with regard to the word "restoration".  To
me “restoration” implies at least two things: 1- you know what the reefs
was like before whatever problem you are trying to recover from
occurred; 2- you are going to restore, not just those easy to propagate
Acropora sp, but all the species that were there including other hard
corals,  sponges, soft corals, etc etc.  I see no evidence in the
"restoration" literature that the goal is to "restore".

Just my 2 cents worth.

John

--

  John R. Ware, PhD
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