Comparative demography of two common scleractinian corals:<i>Orbicella annularis</i>and<i>Porites astreoides</i>

Soto-Santiago, Francisco J.; Mercado-Molina, Alex E.; Reyes-Maldonado, Koralis; Vélez, Yaileen; Ruiz-Diaz, Claudia Patricia; Sabat, Alberto M.

doi:10.7717/peerj.3906

Cited by 8 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…But demographic evidence from ongoing studies in Puerto Rico have not shown such trend. In contrast, locality and environmental conditions seem to be more critical factors than species [86] or density (Hernández-Delgado, unpublished data) in affecting out-planted coral survival rates. Increasing out-planted staghorn coral (A. cervicornis) (e.g., 1-4 colonies/m 2 ) can lead to faster recovery of fish assemblages than reefs with lower density (say, 1 colony per 4 m 2 ) or in control sites without out-plants (Hernández-Delgado, in review).…”

Section: Out-planting Spatial Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multi-Disciplinary Lessons Learned from Low-Tech Coral Farming and Reef Rehabilitation: I. Best Management Practices

Hernández-Delgado¹,

Mercado-Molina²,

Suleimán-Ramos³

2018

Corals in a Changing World

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Low-tech coral farming and reef rehabilitation have become important communitybased coral reef management tools. At least in the wider Caribbean region, these strategies have been successfully implemented to recover depleted populations of staghorn (Acropora cervicornis) and elkhorn coral (A. palmata). They have also been used with relative success to recover depleted fish assemblages. Indirectly, coral reef rehabilitation has also resulted in enhanced benthic spatial heterogeneity, in providing multiple new microhabitats for fish and invertebrate species; have contributed to the recovery of coastal resilience, increasing the protection of shorelines against erosion; and have fostered an increased interest of the tourism sector as an enhanced attraction for visitors and recreationists. Nevertheless, there is still a need to implement best management practices to improve the success of these strategies. In this chapter, lessons learned from the Community-Based Coral Aquaculture and Reef Rehabilitation Program in Culebra Island, Puerto Rico, are shared from a multidisciplinary standpoint. Learning from past experiences is a critical process to improve science. In a time of significant projected climate change impacts and sea level rise, improving the scale of coral farming and reef rehabilitation has become a critical tool for coral reef conservation. But multiple roadblocks must still be overcome.

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Section: Out-planting Spatial Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multi-Disciplinary Lessons Learned from Low-Tech Coral Farming and Reef Rehabilitation: I. Best Management Practices

Hernández-Delgado¹,

Mercado-Molina²,

Suleimán-Ramos³

2018

Corals in a Changing World

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“…fertility) schedules that indicate the proportion of the population that reproduces, as well as the fecundity of mature individuals. As a common objective of demographic approaches is to increase the accuracy with which populations can be projected into the future, survival and maternity schedules from LTs are used to parameterize cohort-based Riegl et al 2017, Soto-Santiago et al 2017. The strengths of LTs are their easy application and their wide distribution throughout the literature.…”

Section: Life Tables (Lts)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Urgent need for coral demography in a world where corals are disappearing

Edmunds

Riegl

2020

Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser.

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Coral reefs have long attracted attention because of their biological and economic importance, but this interest now has turned to examining the possibility of functional extirpation. Widespread declines in coral abundances have fueled the shift in motivation for studying reefs and catalyzed the proliferation of monitoring to record the changes underway. Despite appreciation of monitoring as a scientific endeavor, its primary use has continued to be the quantification of cover of coral, macroalgae, and a few other space holders. The limitations of coral cover in evaluating the consequences of changing coral abundance were highlighted decades ago. Yet neglect of the tools most appropriate for this task (demographic approaches) and continuing emphasis on a tool (coral cover) that is not ideal, indicates that these limitations are not widely appreciated. Reef monitoring therefore continues to underperform with respect to its potential, thus depriving scientists of the approaches necessary to project the fate of coral reefs and test hypotheses focused on the proximal causes of declining coral cover. We make the case that the coral reef crisis creates a need for coral demography that is more acute now than 4 decades ago. Modern demographic approaches are well suited to meet this need, but to realize their potential, consideration will need to be given to the possibility of expanding ecological monitoring of coral reefs to provide the data necessary for demographic analyses of their foundation taxon, the Scleractinia.

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“…Branching rates in this species growing in nurseries and in colonies out-planted to the reef, respectively, increase with colony size [19,20,32]. Thus, growing large-sized colonies in nurseries, as well as those colonies out-planted to the reef, may result in greater number of branches available for a restoration project, increasing the potential coral propagule abundance available for future restoration efforts.…”

Section: Lack Of Knowledge Of Staghorn Coral (Acropora Cervicornis) Bmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, few coral biologists have applied demographic-based population models to answer specific conservation questions (but see [16][17][18][19]). Vardi et al [17] and Mercado-Molina et al [18] used size-based population matrix models have been used to describe the demography and population dynamics of threatened coral species Acropora palmata [19] and A. cervicornis, respectively [18]. They found that the demographic transition that contributes the most to local λ is the survival of large colonies.…”

Section: Lessons Learned From Coral Demographic Dynamics 21 Coral Dmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Multi-disciplinary Lessons Learned from Low-Tech Coral Farming and Reef Rehabilitation: II. Coral Demography and Social-Ecological Benefits

Hernández-Delgado¹,

Mercado-Molina²,

Suleimán-Ramos³

et al. 2018

Corals in a Changing World

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Low-tech coral farming and reef rehabilitation have become important tools to foster community-based participation in the management of coastal social-ecological systems. Lessons learned from coral demographic dynamics, ecosystem-level benefits, and sociological dynamics achieved in Culebra Island, Puerto Rico, are discussed. Important gaps regarding social-ecological interactions are also addressed. Coral reef rehabilitation efforts must be adaptive and focused on maximizing resilience as a long-term goal, with emphasis on managing non-linear dynamics, thresholds, environmental and climate uncertainty, and ecological surprises. In this context, coral demographic modelling becomes fundamental to address, not only ecological, but also sociological concerns. Only through sustained support and input of harvested corals restored populations, and by increasing the spatial scale of reef rehabilitation, restored populations can remain viable and grow under present and projected environmental and climate conditions. Understanding sociological dynamics, learning from others experiences, integrating visioning and scenario building, leadership building, multi-sectorial agents and actor groups, and strengthening cross-sectorial social networking are necessary adaptive approaches to cope with future environmental and climate changes, and are an integral part of reef rehabilitation. The combined benefits to social-ecological systems are multiple. With proper planning, design, funding, local support, and implementation, these can have long-lasting impacts in restoring coastal resilience.

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Comparative demography of two common scleractinian corals:Orbicella annularisandPorites astreoides

Cited by 8 publications

References 37 publications

Multi-Disciplinary Lessons Learned from Low-Tech Coral Farming and Reef Rehabilitation: I. Best Management Practices

Multi-Disciplinary Lessons Learned from Low-Tech Coral Farming and Reef Rehabilitation: I. Best Management Practices

Urgent need for coral demography in a world where corals are disappearing

Multi-disciplinary Lessons Learned from Low-Tech Coral Farming and Reef Rehabilitation: II. Coral Demography and Social-Ecological Benefits

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