Coral reefs worldwide are degrading due to climate change, overfishing, pollution, coastal development, coral bleaching, and diseases. In areas where the natural recovery of an ecosystem is negligible or protection through management interventions insufficient, active restoration becomes critical. The Reef Futures symposium in 2018 brought together over 400 reef restoration experts, businesses, and civil organizations, and galvanized them to save coral reefs through restoration or identify alternative solutions. The symposium highlighted that solutions and discoveries from long-term and ongoing coral reef restoration projects in Spanish-speaking countries in the Caribbean and Eastern Tropical Pacific were not well known internationally. Therefore, a meeting of scientists and practitioners working in these locations was held to compile the data on the extent of coral reef restoration efforts, advances and challenges. Here, we present unpublished data from 12 coral reef restoration case studies from five Latin American countries, describe their motivations and techniques used, and provide estimates on total annual project cost per unit area of reef intervened, spatial extent as well as project duration. We found that most projects used direct transplantation, the coral gardening method, micro-fragmentation or larval propagation, and aimed to optimize or scale-up restoration approaches (51%) or provide alternative, sustainable
Echinoderm mass mortality events shape marine ecosystems by altering the dynamics among major benthic groups. The sea urchin Diadema antillarum , virtually extirpated in the Caribbean in the early 1980s by an unknown cause, recently experienced another mass mortality beginning in January 2022. We investigated the cause of this mass mortality event through combined molecular biological and veterinary pathologic approaches comparing grossly normal and abnormal animals collected from 23 sites, representing locations that were either affected or unaffected at the time of sampling. Here, we report that a scuticociliate most similar to Philaster apodigitiformis was consistently associated with abnormal urchins at affected sites but was absent from unaffected sites. Experimentally challenging naïve urchins with a Philaster culture isolated from an abnormal, field-collected specimen resulted in gross signs consistent with those of the mortality event. The same ciliate was recovered from treated specimens postmortem, thus fulfilling Koch’s postulates for this microorganism. We term this condition D. antillarum scuticociliatosis.
39Coral reefs worldwide are degrading due to climate change, overfishing, pollution, coastal 40 development, bleaching and diseases. In areas where natural recovery is negligible or protection 41 through management interventions insufficient, active restoration becomes critical. The Reef Futures 42 symposium in 2018 brought together over 400 reef restoration experts, businesses, and civil 43 organizations, and galvanized them to save coral reefs through restoration or identify alternative 44 solutions. The symposium highlighted that solutions and discoveries from long-term and ongoing coral 45 reef restoration projects in Spanish-speaking countries in the Caribbean and Eastern Tropical Pacific 46were not well known internationally. Therefore, a meeting of scientists and practitioners working in 47 these locations was held to compile the data on the extent of coral reef restoration efforts, advances 48 and challenges. Here, we present unpublished data from 12 coral reef restoration case studies from 49five Latin American countries, describe their motivations and techniques used, and provide estimates 50 on total annual project cost per unit area of reef intervened, spatial extent as well as project duration. 51We found that most projects used direct transplantation, the coral gardening method, micro-52 fragmentation or larval propagation, and aimed to optimize or scale-up restoration approaches (51%) 53 or provide alternative, sustainable livelihood opportunities (15%) followed by promoting coral reef 54 conservation stewardship and re-establishing a self-sustaining, functioning reef ecosystem (both 55 13%). Reasons for restoring coral reefs were mainly biotic and experimental (both 42%), followed by 56 idealistic and pragmatic motivations (both 8%). The median annual total cost from all projects was 57 $93,000 USD (range: $10,000 USD -$331,802 USD) (2018 dollars) and intervened a median spatial 58 area of 1 ha (range: 0.06 ha -8.39 ha). The median project duration was 3 years; however, projects 59 have lasted up to 17 years. Project feasibility was high with a median of 0.7 (range: 0.5 -0.8). This 60 study closes the knowledge gap between academia and practitioners and overcomes the language 61 barrier by providing the first comprehensive compilation of data from ongoing coral reef restoration 62
Coral assisted fertilization, larval rearing and recruit propagation success in significant ecological scales, largely depend on scaling up and replicating these efforts in as many regions as possible. The Dominican Foundation for Marine Studies (FUNDEMAR) has become a pioneer of these efforts in the Dominican Republic, being the first institution to successfully implement coral sexual reproduction techniques in the country and establishing the first mobile larvae culturing facility. Here we share our perspective on three main components behind the success of FUNDEMAR’s program: (1) a self-sustainable program in alliance with local and international organizations, (2) the design and construction of the first Coral Assisted Reproduction Laboratory in the country, and a (3) clearly defined scalable structure for outcome performance. Two years after program implementation, FUNDEMAR has successfully produced an annual regional coral spawning prediction calendar, cultured seven coral species, and seeded over 4,500 substrates with more than 268,200 sexual coral recruits in approximately 1,880 m2 reef areas. Here, we provide a detailed description of a fully functional assisted coral reproduction program, including the lessons learned during its implementation as well as a series of specific solutions. We hope this work will help and inspire other countries and small institutions to replicate FUNDEMAR’s coral assisted reproduction program components and contribute to the expansion of sexual coral restoration efforts in the Caribbean.
Monitoring programs can help understand coral disease dynamics. Here, we present results from a national program in the Dominican Republic (DR) aimed at evaluating coral diseases 3 times a year following a nested spatial design. Prevalence of coral diseases in DR varied from sites to regions, suggesting that disease dynamics can be driven by local processes and/or across larger spatial scales. Three diseases were common: Dark Spot (DSD), Yellow Band (YBD) and Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD). DSD and YBD were more prevalent across the western coast (north and south), whereas SCTLD was restricted for the study period to the northern coast. SCTLD has become endemic in the northwestern coast, epizootic in the northeastern, and absent in other sites across DR. SCTLD prevalence in the northwest was below 10% across sites, whereas in the northeast it varied from 2.13±3.69% (mean± sd) to 38.7±13.55% in Galeras and from 1.9±0.99% to 38.5±19.8% in Samaná. Over 10 coral species were affected by SCTLD in DR, with Pseudodiploria spp, Dendrogyra cylindrus, Eusmilia fastigiata, Siderastrea siderea, Montastraea cavernosa and Meandrina spp, being the most susceptible. We observed SCTLD affecting recruits and juvenile corals with 5% prevalence on average. Furthermore, we observed Oreaster reticulatus climbing on 1% healthy and 27% SCTLD P. strigosa colonies in Samaná. We conclude that SCTLD is a serious problem in DR, producing rapid loss of coral cover of major reef builders that are locally used for propagation efforts. This monitoring plan will provide future insights to design more effective disease responses.
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