Capture, Culture and Release of Postlarvae Fishes: Proof-of-Concept as a Tool Approach to Support Reef Management

Abstract

The changing world presents negative impacts on marine ecosystems and has led to the development of diversified tools to support reef restoration. Harnessing restoration to achieve success needs innovative techniques that also address the restoration of reef fish assemblages, contributing to the conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem functions and also tackle the cost-effectiveness through impact-driven solutions. Here, we propose a proof-of-concept for enhancing fish populations on reefs using: (1) postlarvae capture, (2) aquarium culture, and (3) release to reef sites. We conducted field studies in the Mexican Caribbean to analyze for the first time, the possibility of using the capture and aquarium culture of postlarvae fish species and release of juveniles as a tool for the potential recovery of reef biodiversity resilience. We tested the potential of postlarvae capture using two distinct night light traps (BOX and collect by artificial reef ecofriendly traps, C.A.R.E.) in three sampling sites with different distances from shoreline and depth. We collected 748 postlarvae reef fishes from eight orders, 20 families, and 40 species. Acanthuridae, Pomacentridae, Monacanthidae, and Tetraodontidae comprised the highest species number of postlarvae families. We also set up a pilot release experiment with Stegastes partitus using two trials (32 and 1 day after capture) and propose analysis to determine appropriate reef sites to release the cultured juveniles and to aid ecological planning. We present the results of the pilot release experiment with S. partitus, showing that there is a positive effect in survivorship during the capture (80%) and release (76–100%) procedures into suitable habitat and good chance that more studies will bring novelty to the field. Although trials carried out with more species relevant to restoration will be needed. The use of these techniques can be a great opportunity to improve the research of restoration efforts in the Caribbean region with fish-depleted coral reefs with vulnerable food webs, especially at local scales and supporting other management strategies.

Rebuilding Coral Reefs: How tourism can be a driver behind solutions in a changing ocean

“…Obtaining the greatest possible quantity and quality of data from the area will allow us to adapt outplanting techniques, incorporate new elements to the system, such as the introduction of fish postlarvae [25], crabs or urchins that could accelerate herbivory functions and in turn improve the natural processes of the coral reefs, allowing an increasing return to equilibrium. It will be fundamental to continue building relationships between government, academia, tourism and local communities to increase restoration efforts and expand watershed-based approaches to make rehabilitation and restoration processes more efficient, as well as to promote nature-based solutions.…”

“…In most projects the metrics to determine the "effectiveness" of the programs do not generally contemplate ecological aspects such as the recovery of ecosystem functions [19,21]. Also, there is a need to implement coral reef restoration projects that include science, policy, governance and investment to achieve scientific commitment to develop novel research to address the challenges of climate change, as well as beyond the reef interventions to promote environmental education and training of community leaders advocating solutions that facilitate best practices in local communities [18,22,23,24,25,26,27].…”

Restoration of herbivory on Caribbean coral reefs: are fishes, urchins, or crabs the solution?

“…This disparity due primarily to the longer pelagic larval duration and the open sea environment required for the successful larval development of most reef fishes. As an alternative, a few studies have investigated the potential use of postlarval fishes captured from the nearshore plankton as a means of assisting the restoration of fish assemblages, though not herbivorous fishes in particular (Heenan et al, 2009;Abelson et al, 2016;Corteś-Useche et al, 2021). This approach is based on the fact that fishes experience high mortality during the settlement and postsettlement phases of their life cycle, so their capture and ex situ rearing to a safer stocking size avoids that demographic bottleneck and the difficult task of rearing them from captive broodstocks.…”