[Coral-List] Restoration rationale

[Robert Nowicki]

Just to add to what others have said, restoration activities also achieve a
few other things:

1) Activities today help streamline activities for tomorrow. There have
been large strides in efficiency and success of coral restoration over the
past 10 years, and knowing what works now will have us that much closer to
scaling up and hitting the ground running as local stressors are better
managed.

2) Coral restoration can provide effective local community engagement.
Many (if not most) coral restoration programs rely on community support-
and those communities as a result putatively get more invested in reef
health and success.

3) Coral restoration facilities can provide broodstock for coral research.
Not only does this allow for strategic "research planting" (to both restore
and answer an applied research question), but by providing the same
genotypes to a wide variety of researchers, we can link restoration success
and controlled field experiments with mechanism-focused, ex situ
experiments- reducing some of the frustrating context dependence that comes
with studying complex biological processes.

4) Coral restoration facilities act as de-facto gene banks, and sometimes
even as sperm banks to other facilities.

I'm sure others can add other things to the list.  I completely agree that
restoration in isolation is not enough to keep reefs healthy in the
anthropocene- we have to get a serious handle on stressors from local to
global scales.  But I think restoration is a critical tool in many areas to
eventually see reefs regain some of their former glory.  In the end, no one
can do everything- and I think having managers and scientists working in
parallel on both restoration and mitigation of stressors is the right
approach.

Curious to hear what others think.

Dr. Rob Nowicki

Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Elizabeth Moore International Center for Coral Reef Research & Restoration
Mote Marine Laboratory
24244 Overseas Highway
Summerland Key, FL 33042

Office phone: (941)-504-4812



On Fri, Sep 13, 2019 at 2:25 PM Steve Gittings - NOAA Federal via
Coral-List <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:

> I can say confidently that people at NOAA and everywhere else know that
> restoration will only succeed if other stressors are reduced as well.  We
> have people working at many levels on a whole range of problems, including
> freshwater input, runoff from population centers, overfishing, vessel
> traffic routing, zoning, disease control, invasive species removal, event
> prediction, coastal development, debris removal, and more.  This story is
> about one grant.  The fact that it doesn't mention other work doesn't mean
> it isn't going on.  Whether it is all doomed because of climate change or
> the cumulative impacts we have seen over the past few decades is another
> story, and a worrisome one at that.
>
> On Fri, Sep 13, 2019 at 11:59 AM Steve Mussman via Coral-List <
> coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:
>
> > In an attempt to better understand the processes and goals involved in
> > coral restoration, I would ask listers to help me gain a fuller
> > appreciation for projects like this.
> >
> >
> >
> https://www.coralrestoration.org/post/noaa-backs-coral-restoration-foundation-with-2-5-million-to-restore-florida-s-coral-reefs
> >
> > Although I get the concept behind enhanced resilience and/or “super
> > corals”, do researchers actually expect newly outplanted corals to
> flourish
> > in degraded ecosystems like those found in the Florida Keys (and
> elsewhere)
> > without first effectively addressing the multitude of stressors
> (including
> > overall water quality, over-fishing, disease and now the broader impacts
> of
> > climate change) that have, over the last several decades, contributed to
> > these ecosystems becoming increasingly degenerated in the first place?
> >
> > Seems to me that we’re putting the proverbial cart before the horse, but
> > maybe I’m missing something (beyond the obvious).
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Steve
> >
> >
> >
> > Sent from my iPad
> > _______________________________________________
> > Coral-List mailing list
> > Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> > https://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
>
>
>
> --
> Dr. Steve Gittings, Science Coordinator
> NOAA Office of National Marine Sanctuaries
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