Assessing an abridged nursery phase for slow growing corals used in coral restoration

Cruz, Dexter W. dela; Rinkevich, Baruch; Gomez, Edgardo D.; Yap, Helen

doi:10.1016/j.ecoleng.2015.09.042

Cited by 44 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 68 publications

(70 reference statements)

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“…The arrangement of large nubbins on the tiles in the present study (approximately 2 cm between each nubbin) was comparable to that used in nursery culture (e.g. Edwards et al 2010;Shafir et al 2010;dela Cruz et al 2015), and may have deterred or reduced grazing by C. spilurus and S. fuscescens.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 72%

Detachment of Porites cylindrica nubbins by herbivorous fishes

Quimpo

Cabaitan

Hoey

2020

Restoration Ecology

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A form of active restoration for coral assemblages involves culturing coral nubbins at nursery sites before transplantation to recipient reefs. Incidental grazing and/or directed predation by local fish assemblages are major sources of dislodgement and mortality for coral nubbins in nurseries. However, the rate of coral nubbin detachment, how this varies across fish taxa, and whether nubbin size affects rates of detachment warrant further investigation. We used field and aquaria experiments to examine the effect of incidental grazing and predation on the detachment of Porites cylindrica nubbins of different sizes (0.5, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 cm height). Short‐term (6 hours) exposure of nubbins to local fish assemblages at Lucero Reef, northwestern Philippines, caused higher detachment (1.93% ± 0.53 SE) compared to caged controls (0.16% ± 0.16 SE), with no detectable effect of nubbin size. To identify the impact of individual fish species, nubbins were exposed to one of four locally abundant herbivorous and corallivorous fish species in aquaria for 8 hours. Nubbin detachment was greater when exposed to Chlorurus spilurus (1.20–36.2%) and Siganus fuscescens (0.00–15.0%) than Chaetodon lunulatus (0.00–4.00%) and Chaetodon kleinii (0.00–1.20%), with the smallest nubbins (0.5 cm) being the most vulnerable. Our results suggest that incidental grazing by herbivorous fishes, especially parrotfishes, may potentially be an important source of detachment and likely mortality of nubbins. Optimizing coral nursery protocols should consider potential trade‐offs between excluding grazing fishes and the accumulation of algal material on caging structures to minimize nubbin mortality and improve coral restoration success.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 72%

Detachment of Porites cylindrica nubbins by herbivorous fishes

Quimpo

Cabaitan

Hoey

2020

Restoration Ecology

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“…Obviously, reef impact mitigation should not replace reef protection as the first management option (Abelson ). With proper techniques, however, farmed corals may exhibit faster growth, and higher larval survivorship and attachment rates than wild corals (Higa & Omori ; Dela Cruz et al ; Higa et al ). This is probably due to less predation and sedimentation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Genetic diversity of farmed and wild populations of the reef‐building coral, Acropora tenuis

Zayasu

Satoh

Shinzato

2018

Restoration Ecology

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Transplantation of nursery-farmed corals is a primary management tool for restoration of degraded coral reefs. However, there have been concerns about the potential loss of genetic diversity in nurseries due to asexual propagation methods used to prepare transplants. Two coral nurseries at Maeganeku and Onna, Okinawa Island, Japan, furnish source material for regional restoration activities. Using 13 microsatellite markers, this study compared the genetic diversity of 132 Acropora tenuis colonies from these nurseries with that of 298 wild colonies from 15 sites across the Nansei Islands. Even though no clonal colonies were detected at wild sites, we estimated clonal richness of farmed corals to be 0.523 (Maeganeku) and 0.579 (Onna). Genotypic diversity is high in the nursery populations, 0.894 (Maeganeku) and 0.937 (Onna), but lower than in the natural populations (1.000). However, expected heterozygosity did not differ significantly between locations, including the coral nurseries (one-way analysis of variance, p > 0.05). Inbreeding coefficients of nursery populations (Onna, −0.019 to Maeganeku, 0.097) fell within the range of estimates from wild populations (Sesoko, −0.058 to Maeda, 0.278). Furthermore, based on Structure analysis, farmed A. tenuis comprises the same genetic population that occupies the surrounding natural area. Thus, given no additional statistically significant increase of clonal colonies within nurseries, using farmed coral assemblages for reef restoration may be preferable to transplanting and damaging wild assemblages. Coral gametes of farmed colonies may also be used to produce coral larvae for transplantation of sexually propagated corals.

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“…Coral reefs of the world are being degraded at disturbing rates and calcification rate have been decreasing as a result of natural and human activities disturbances (Spalding and Brown, 2015;Lizcano-Sandoval et al 2018), that requires the development of real restoration systems. Two of the methods frequently used today are (1) the direct transplantation of coral fragments/colonies to corrupted reefs; and (2) the "coral gardening" method, which supports coral transplantation only following an transitional nursery phase, where corals are cultivate until reaching appropriate sizes (dela Cruz et al 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Survivorship and growth rates for some transplanted coral reef building species and their potential for coral reef rehabilitation in the Red Sea

Mahmoud¹,

Dar²,

Hussein³

et al. 2019

Egypt. J. of Aquatic Biolo. and Fish.

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Keywords:Coral reefs Red Sea Transplantation Rehabilitation Acroporidae Pocilloporidae.The deterioration of coral reefs in Egypt is a serious environmental problem. As part of studying the reef habitats rehabilitation; about 180 specimens of 8 hard coral reef species belonging to 2 families (Pocilliporidae and Acroporidae) were transplanted using table-type galvanized steel frameworks. Survival and growth rates were measured in situ then monitored over 24 months. From the transplanted 180 specimens, 128 fragments representing 71% were still survived after 4 months decreased to 121 fragments with a percentage of 67.2% after 12 months increased to 123 fragments (after recovery of two specimens) with 68.3% of the transplanted specimens after 24 months. Significant differences (P<0.05) in growth rates were observed among the three periods of investigation (4, 12 and 24 months) in both families. The mean growth rates of investigated species of Pocilliporidae; S. pistillata, P. damicornis and P. verrucosa after 4, 12 and 24 months were; 1.27±0.06 cm yr -1 , 1.2±0.07 cm yr -1 and 1.03±0.07 cm yr -1 (F = 3.43, 3.16 and 4.95) respectively. The investigated species of Acroporidae; Acropora tenuis, A. digitifera, A. horrid, A. samoensis and A. variabilis recorded the annual mean growth rates of; 0.56±0.02 cm yr -1 , 0.45± 0.04 cm yr -1 , 1.04± 0.05cm yr -1 , 0.83± 0.04cm yr -1 and 0.98± 0.03cm yr -1 (F = 17.58, 0.59, 0.60, 1.50 and 2.83) respectively. New coral reef recruits were observed for S. pistillata, P. verrucosa, P. damicornis and A. degitefera, but the coral recovery was observed for S. pistillata only.

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Assessing an abridged nursery phase for slow growing corals used in coral restoration

Cited by 44 publications

References 68 publications

Detachment of Porites cylindrica nubbins by herbivorous fishes

Detachment of Porites cylindrica nubbins by herbivorous fishes

Genetic diversity of farmed and wild populations of the reef‐building coral, Acropora tenuis

Survivorship and growth rates for some transplanted coral reef building species and their potential for coral reef rehabilitation in the Red Sea

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