Coral reef restoration efforts in Latin American countries and territories

Abstract

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 Here, we present unpublished data from 12 coral reef restoration case studies from 49five Latin American countries, describe their motivations and techniques used, and provide estimates 50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

Priorities and Motivations of Marine Coastal Restoration Research

“…Studies where motivations were gleaned by surveying restoration practitioners have found primarily biotic, pragmatic or social rationales for restoration, e.g., Bernhardt et al (2007) and Hagger et al (2017). Information on large-scale restoration and in countries where English is not the main language is often not published, with only few exceptions, e.g., Bayraktarov et al (2020), and we may be missing out on more than 35% of the knowledge in conservation if peer-reviewed literature searches are restricted to English (Amano et al, 2016). Another caveat is that funding provided by the research institution in terms of salaries and facilities are rarely acknowledged in a scientific publication.…”

Spatial distribution of microbial communities among colonies and genotypes in nursery-reared Acropora cervicornis

“…In response to the loss of coral reefs, organizations around the Caribbean have turned to coral gardening to replenish local populations of coral (Bayraktarov et al, 2020;Young, Schopmeyer & Lirman, 2012). For example, coral restoration projects have resulted in the outplanting of tens of thousands of nursery-reared Acropora corals on Florida reefs each year (Schopmeyer et al, 2017;Lirman & Schopmeyer, 2016).…”

Beyond Reef Restoration: Next-Generation Techniques for Coral Gardening, Landscaping, and Outreach

“…Selection of resilient genotypes could improve restoration efficiency, reduce costs and, ensure that restored populations do not meet the same fate as their predecessors. Although recommended in restoration guidelines (e.g., Baums et al, 2019;Coral Restoration Consortium, 2020), few projects report preselecting genotypes via an assessment of stress resilience before conducting nursery efforts (e.g., Morikawa and Palumbi, 2019; Fundemar and Iberostar case studies in Bayraktarov et al, 2020). Restoration efforts show genotypic driven phenotypic divergence in survivorship and response to thermal stress (Drury et al, 2017;Ladd et al, 2017), yet our understanding of which traits may assure resilience to future climate conditions remains rudimentary.…”

“…Although some operators facilitate partial public access, few systems are specifically built to cater to a greater audience including non-swimmers or non-divers. However, operators are starting to explore this avenue, as for example the Wave of Change project of the Iberostar Group in Bayahibe, Dominican Republic, which creates an ex situ, land-based, nursery that caters to both, research as well as educational purposes (Bayraktarov et al, 2020). Nevertheless, the outreach, entertainment and educative value to a greater public audience of coastal land-based coral gardens remains vastly unexplored.…”

“…Motivations for coral restoration are diverse, ranging from biodiversity enhancement, social outcomes, scientific projects, to projects restoring or maintaining ecosystem services for fisheries, tourism, coastal protection among others (Bayraktarov et al, 2020). While ecological outcomes are often reported, reports on economic and social outcomes are often neglected (Bayraktarov et al, 2019).…”