[Coral-List] Restoration rationale (Steve Mussman) (Andrew Ross)

[Andrew Ross]

Hi Austin,
To keep within the analogy, Jamaica’s corals have been living in the burning building for 40+ years including some born into it. Rarely are they thriving beyond one-one, but they are persisting. They do respond negatively to storms/blow-down as these elevate stress beyond durability. They also do respond positively to fragmentation/relocation to grazed & elevated points, including via nursery head-starting. Yes, at management scales. Yes, related to value and that value is usually related to tourism, at least in the shorter-terms needed to keep rent paid. 

To continue to mangle the good analogy, how has the fire progressed? What remains and does not? Have rooms burned themselves out? Are the masonry, tiles & toilets salvageable? For Jamaica’s north coast: 
* Diadema (urchins) have returned here and there (few fish to eat them) to great impact to macroalgae, established corals & CCA including a bit of recruitment. Those rooms are livable, though maybe smokey with an occasional cinder. 
* Coralliophila (snails) are patchy-common, but tiny, so the larger may have starved out.
* Apparently novel diseases in massive a corals last and this year, leaving graveyards were we had beautiful hope beacon gardens. That was the whole western wing in inferno, though now seems to be burning itself out with some foundations remaining. 
* Hermodice (fire-worms) are currently a major issue, but may be in a pulse from gorging on dying massive coral tissue. My hope is that these particularly huge worms also starve out. 
* 1980s banding & patching diseases are almost certainly still present in Acropora, and with plenty of damselfish. Those rooms are a no-go, even with a fireman. 
* We noted the first hints of bleaching just this morning. Fingers-crossed it doesn’t get too near the gas mains…


Andrew M. Ross, Ph.D. 
Seascape Caribbean
+1-876-363-8850


> On Sep 19, 2019, at 5:28 PM, Austin Bowden-Kerby <abowdenkerby at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Thanks Andrew, 
> 
> I completely agree that we can and must restore reproductive patches of corals back to the reefs, in spite of rather "crummy" over-fished or polluted, or warming conditions- if we can.  If coral gardening can succeed in keeping pockets of our threatened corals alive, especially the bleaching resistant ones, it will give us more time to work on the bigger picture problems.  At least there is hope for the future restoration of the wider system if we can keep enough genotypes of each coral species alive. 
> 
> However, I think that what we are doing is actually more endangered species management than restoration.  The restoration will come later, after the severe problems are lessened. As such, I am against widespread out-planting unless and until the underlying reasons for coral decline have been reasonably solved, otherwise Gene's borrowed analogy applies-  it is like sending a family back into a burning house before the fires have been put out!   Maybe the resilient corals like Porites could be sent in, but definitely not the Acroporas.  
> 
> This same reality now exists for some Pacific reefs, and phase shifts are occurring due to mass bleaching- away from Acropora dominance to Pocillopora dominance- based on observations at least.  I have a new hypothesis based on what I have seen in the field several times now, dumping it here, in case someon wants to work on it.  Pacific parrotfish like to eat living Acropora corals as well as dead ones, and when Acroporas become rare after bleaching, not only do the surviving bleaching resistant corals face near certain death from COTS and Drupela snails, but they can be devoured by parrotfish as well. Pocillopora corals on the other hand have a very dense skeleton and resist the damage.  I have out-planted a cubic meter of Acropora transplants, only to have them completely eaten- virtual nothingness within only 24 hours. The Stegastes damselfish territories in such cases become the last places with Acropora holdouts-  the fish actively defend the corals from the parrotfish, and COTS, and the snails don't seem to make it into the thicket either, perhaps due to the hairy seaweeds planted by the fish?  
>  
> Back to shared realities: as tourism is the biggest industry that depends on coral reefs globally, we really must give tourism a role in the salvation of coral reefs, globally- let them fund the manpower that can help keep the corals alive-  through gardening interventions: predator removal, algal removal, damage repair, care for our gene bank coral nurseries, whatever is needed to counteract coral demise on limited patches of reef. The heat adapted survivors of the Acropora corals are replanted into these well-gardened reefs. But that's not all- the resorts become more highly engaged, and so they work harder to clean up their act.  We also find that communities and governments when made aware of the importance of the work, support the establishment of no-take areas around the restored coral patches-  so restoration can provide a local incentive for no-take areas.  That is what is happening over here in the Pacific islands at least.  Up-scaling to me means increasing the numbers of resorts with trained coral gardeners and with small no-take areas where bleaching resistant corals thrive. Here in Fiji we are posed for a hundred-fold up-scaling over the coming years.  Not only are we saving the corals, but we are transforming an industry from the bottom up. 
> 
> But of course we are only buying time, time for a transformation of energy production systems and the global economic order.  
> 
> Time to mobilize and get more audacious!   
> 
> Austin
>  
> Austin Bowden-Kerby, PhD 
> Corals for Conservation
> Sustainable Environmental Livelihoods for the Future
> P.O. Box 4649 Samabula, Fiji Islands
> https://www.facebook.com/C4Conservation <https://www.facebook.com/C4Conservation> 
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p009j6wb <http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p009j6wb>
> TEDx talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PRLJ8zDm0U <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PRLJ8zDm0U>
> https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/emergency-response-to-massive-coral-bleaching/  <https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/emergency-response-to-massive-coral-bleaching/> 
> 
> Sustainable Environmental Livelihoods Farm
> Km 20 Sigatoka Valley Road, Fiji Islands
> (679) 938-6437 
> http://permacultureglobal.com/projects/1759-sustainable-environmental-livelihoods-farm-Fiji <http://permacultureglobal.com/projects/1759-sustainable-environmental-livelihoods-farm-Fiji>
> https://www.facebook.com/teiteifarmstay <https://www.facebook.com/teiteifarmstay> 
> https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/happy-chickens-for-food-security-and-environment- <https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/happy-chickens-for-food-security-and-environment-1/>
>  
> Message: 12
> Date: Wed, 18 Sep 2019 16:41:42 -0500
> From:Andrew Ross <ross.andrew at mac.com <mailto:ross.andrew at mac.com>>
> To: Austin Bowden-Kerby <abowdenkerby at gmail.com <mailto:abowdenkerby at gmail.com>>
> Cc: coral list <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov <mailto:coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>>
> Subject: Re: [Coral-List] Restoration rationale (Steve Mussman)
> Message-ID: <F9D276C3-44C4-4A03-AF5F-1C2C69EF217D at mac.com <mailto:F9D276C3-44C4-4A03-AF5F-1C2C69EF217D at mac.com>>
> Content-Type: text/plain;       charset=utf-8
> 
> Good afternoon Austin, Steve & List,
> Austin, you have suggested that the remaining corals of the modern Caribbean are those that are somewhat adapted to the (crumby?) conditions of their bay or of the region. As such, the conditions have not been addressed, but things have changed that may be helpful and may be helped along. 
> 
> Even if a site is erring towards awful, we can often overwhelm the bad for a net-positive trajectory. This is enhanced (or maybe allowed) through careful curating of the material to tolerant and/or stronger lineages, head-starting in the nursery and setting the proverbial shedload of such high-test material* (with fingers crossed). This would be amongst the differences between a horticultural approach, in which every polyp is sacred, and a silvicultural approach where one factors for losses. 
> Better, employ a body to visit the site twice per week with trusty pliers to chop-up worms/snails/COTS, upright blow-downs & snip away dead bits and disease: a reef gardener. Better still, set an MPA in parallel including, as Austin also has long suggested and we?ve implemented here and there, using the coral culture/enhancement programme as interest springboard to some sort of local management. It is absolutely putting the cart before the horse, and sometimes the horse can use the nudge. 
> 
> *Head-started microfragments/nubbins seem to be the best option for ?overwhelming? numbers. I agree that wee corals appear to be less tasty, smelly or generally findable to marauders, giving them a few months to get established. 
> 
> Apologies for my response lag & best regards,
> 
> 
> Andrew M. Ross, Ph.D. 
> Seascape Caribbean
> +1-876-363-8850
> 
> 
> 
> > On Sep 14, 2019, at 5:42 AM, Austin Bowden-Kerby via Coral-List <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov <mailto:coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>> wrote:
> > 
> > Bula from Fiji,
> > 
> > I agree with Steve that it is impossible or at least very difficult to
> > restore corals to reefs where the root causes of coral decline have not yet
> > been properly addressed.  Massive out-planting like the sort proposed can
> > be done, but most of the out-plants will likely fail - unless small pilot
> > outplants are done beforehand to test the survival risks and potentials of
> > each sites. Otherwise the transplants will likely become food for snails
> > and fire worms, at least on unbalanced, over-fished reefs. That was my
> > experience in much of the Caribbean.
> > 
> > However, if a good ecological balance exists. like in the no-take areas of
> > Belize, where the corals are missing due to acute problems now mostly past,
> > and where lack of recovery was related to a lack of sexual reproduction as
> > Acropora coral populations had become widely dispersed, mono-genetic, or
> > Stegastes damselfish infested.  Fragments of Hope in Belize has had great
> > success restoring sexually reproductive populations of Acropora to these
> > reefs, and fish abundance has increased greatly due to the vastly improved
> > habitat structure the coral provide.  Pretty amazing actually.
> > 
> > Over here in the Pacific, there are some reefs with pristine waters and
> > with amazing numbers of fish, but the corals are mostly gone due to mass
> > bleaching.  For such reefs, the abundant parrotfish become the biggest
> > challenge, as they can devour the outplants.  I see the branching corals on
> > these reefs shifting from Acropora dominance to Pocillopora dominance and
> > then to Porites or massive Pavona dominance.  On Christmas Island Kiribati,
> > all of the Acropora species are now locally extinct or represented by a
> > handful of surviving genotypes, The most important thing now is to restore
> > sexual reproduction and larval recruitment processes to these remaining
> > Acropora species, and that is what we are doing. Micro-fragmenting seems to
> > be the best way to avoid parrotfish predation and the total death of
> > transplants. Fortunately after five trips, I have not yet seen a single
> > predatory snail or COTS.
> > 
> > Regards to all,
> > 
> > Austin
> > 
>