[Coral-List] Biofouling of Coral Nurseries

Fri Oct 2 16:28:01 EDT 2015

Szmant, A. M. (1997) Nutrient effects on coral reefs: A hypothesis on the
importance of topographic and trophic complexity to reef nutrient dynamics.
Proc. 8th Int’l. Coral Reef Symp. 2: 1527–1532.

This study showed that with high fish numbers that fish corals can continue
to thrive even under moderately enriched conditions.

Austin

Austin Bowden-Kerby, PhD
Corals for Conservation
P.O. Box 4649 Samabula, Fiji Islands
https://www.facebook.com/C4Conservation
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p009j6wb

Sustainable Environmental Livelihoods Farm
Km 20 Sigatoka Valley Road, Fiji Islands
(679) 938-6437
http://permacultureglobal.com/projects/1759-sustainable-environmental-livelihoods-farm-Fiji
https://www.facebook.com/teiteifarmstay
https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/happy-chickens-for-food-security-and-environment-1/

On Sat, Oct 3, 2015 at 1:36 AM, Risk, Michael <riskmj at mcmaster.ca> wrote:

> Austin, while you are at it (re your earlier post), I would be interested
> in the papers showing that water quality was not related to coral survival.
>
> On Oct 2, 2015, at 4:36 AM, Sarah Frias-Torres <sfrias_torres at hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> >
> > Austin,would you be so kind to list the peer-reviewed papers where in
> multiple sites and multiple countries it has been shown well situated coral
> nurseries do not require maintenance for biofouling due to the presence of
> animal-assisted cleaning, and of those papers, the ones that quantified the
> effect of animal-assisted cleaning?
> > We cited all the peer-reviewed papers we found dealing with such topic
> in our paper which were available to us a the time of writing and reviewing
> the manuscript.
> > Also, the recommendations you suggest in your email might not be
> applicable to all coral reef restoration projects. In the Indo-Pacific we
> must be prepared for the presence and coral eating habits of Humphead
> Parrotfish (Bolbometopon  muricatum). We were thrilled to have this
> endangered fish in our marine reserve at Cousin Island, Seychelles but at
> the same time we were cautious in designing our field experiments keeping
> an eye for possible coral damage from the Humpheads.
> >
> > Sarah Frias-Torres, Ph.D. Twitter: @GrouperDocBlog: http:/
> /grouperluna.wordpress.comhttp://independent.academia.edu/SarahFriasTorres
> >
> >
> >> Date: Wed, 30 Sep 2015 08:13:00 +1200
> >> From: abowdenkerby at gmail.com
> >> To: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> >> Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Biofouling of Coral Nurseries
> >>
> >> Regarding Sarah Frias-Torres' post:
> >>
> >> We have learned from multiple sites in multiple countries over multiple
> >> years that well-situated coral nurseries do not require maintenance for
> >> biofouling.
> >>
> >> We are consistently using simple metal bar structures with corals
> suspended
> >> from ropes, and for these types of nurseries juvenile and adult fish
> clean
> >> the ropes and bars of algae, hydroids, etc., saving much time and
> money.  I
> >> describe these methods and conditions in the recently released handbook:
> >> Best Practices Manual for Caribbean Acropora Restoration, which I have
> >> recently put on Researchgate.net
> >>
> >> I summary, we recommend that rope nurseries be located in shallow waters
> >> (2-4M deep) on sand or rubble, if possible behind reef structures that
> >> offer protection from prevailing storm waves.  The critical factor is
> >> placement within 1-2 meters of good juvenile fish habitat (sea grass or
> >> branching coral colonies), or if further away (or in hindsight) to
> create
> >> bridges of good shelter habitat to enable the fish to cross into the
> >> nursery.  Juvenile fish will not cross expanses of barren sand, but then
> >> neither do most coral predators, so a bit of gap is quite important.
> >>
> >> Bowden-Kerby, A. 2014.  Best Practices Manual for Caribbean Acropora
> >> Restoration. Punta Cana Ecological Foundation, 40pp.
> >>
> >> The work was Funded by the InterAmerican Development Bank.
> >>
> >> Austin
> >>
> >> Austin Bowden-Kerby, PhD
> >> Corals for Conservation
> >> P.O. Box 4649 Samabula, Fiji Islands
> >> https://www.facebook.com/C4Conservation
> >> http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p009j6wb
> >>
> >> Sustainable Environmental Livelihoods Farm
> >> Km 20 Sigatoka Valley Road, Fiji Islands
> >> (679) 938-6437
> >>
> http://permacultureglobal.com/projects/1759-sustainable-environmental-livelihoods-farm-Fiji
> >> https://www.facebook.com/teiteifarmstay
> >>
> >> Message: 2
> >> Date: Tue, 29 Sep 2015 02:29:54 -0400
> >> From: Sarah Frias-Torres <sfrias_torres at hotmail.com>
> >> Subject: [Coral-List] Reef fishes reduce biofouling cleaning time in
> >>        coral   nurseries
> >> To: coral list <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
> >> Message-ID: <SNT148-W27A8A7ADC298D796F453AA814E0 at phx.gbl>
> >> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252"
> >>
> >> Dear all,
> >> Our first peer-reviewed article on the large scale coral reef
> restoration
> >> project I lead in Seychelles was born today.
> >> I would like to draw your attention to our recent article in African
> >> Journal of Marine Science:
> >> Reef fishes recruited at midwater coral nurseries consume biofouling and
> >> reduce cleaning time in Seychelles, Indian Ocean
> >> In coral reef restoration, coral gardening involves rearing coral
> fragments
> >> in underwater nurseries prior totransplantation. These nurseries become
> >> fish-aggregating devices and attract biofouling. We hypothesisedthat:
> (1)
> >> the presence of corals at a nursery is critical to recruit fish
> assemblages
> >> and (2) the recruited fishassemblages control biofouling, reducing
> >> person-hours invested in nursery cleaning. Three midwater coralnurseries
> >> were deployed at 8 m depth for 27 months within the marine protected
> area
> >> of Cousin Island SpecialReserve, Seychelles, Indian Ocean. Each nursery
> >> consisted of a 6 m ? 6 m PVC pipe frame, layered with a
> recycled5.5-cm-mesh
> >> tuna net. Human cleaning effort was calculated based on daily dive logs.
> >> Nursery-associated fishassemblages and behaviour were video-recorded
> prior
> >> to harvesting corals after a 20-month growth period andseven months
> >> post-coral harvesting. The density (ind. m?2) of blue-yellow damselfish
> >> Pomacentrus caeruleus was12?16 times highe
> >> r when corals were present than when corals were absent at the
> nurseries..
> >> Fish assemblagesrecruited into the nurseries included three trophic
> levels,
> >> from herbivores to omnivores, in six families: Ephippidae,Pomacentridae,
> >> Labridae (Scarinae), Gobiidae, Siganidae and Monacanthidae. Higher
> >> abundance of large fish (totalnumber of individuals) resulted in 2.75
> times
> >> less person-hours spent in nursery cleaning. These results haveimportant
> >> implications for cost-effective coral reef restoration.
> >> Authors: Sarah Frias-Torres, Henry Goehlich, Claude Reveret, Phanor H
> >> Montoya-MayaInstitutions: Nature Seychelles, Republic of Seychelles,
> >> Smithsonian Marine Station, USA, University of Rostock, Germany,
> CREOCEAN,
> >> France
> >> Full pdf accesshttp://
> >> www.tandfonline.com/doi/ref/10.2989/1814232X.2015.1078259
> >> VideosHumphead parrotfish encounterhttps://
> >> www.youtube.com/watch?v=525P_2MY3hk
> >> Fish at midwater coral nurserieshttps://
> www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3XgSqe4d3M
> >>
> >> Sarah Frias-Torres, Ph.D. Twitter: @GrouperDocBlog: http:/
> >> /grouperluna.wordpress.comhttp://
> independent.academia.edu/SarahFriasTorres
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Coral-List mailing list
> >> Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> >> http://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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>
> Risk, Michael
> riskmj at mcmaster.ca
>
>
>
>