Using Agent‐Based Models to Aid Reef Restoration: Enhancing Coral Cover and Topographic Complexity through the Spatial Arrangement of Coral Transplants

Abstract

High coral cover and topographic complexity are favorable qualities of a healthy coral reef. Because coral reef restoration is expensive and coral growth is naturally slow, there is a need to strategically arrange coral transplants to maximize coral cover and topographic complexity. Similarly, it is important to understand how differences in the life history characteristics of coral transplants can influence changes in the structural attributes of coral reefs. This study utilizes agent-based computer modeling to explore the different spatial scenarios of coral transplantation using corals with contrasting r-and K-selected life histories. Spatial indexes are used to compare coral cover and topographic complexity at incremental time scales, within which disturbance events are of minor importance in spatial structuring. The outcomes of the model suggest that even-spaced grided transplanting arrangements provide the fastest increase in coral cover and three-dimensional habitat space (topographic complexity) across large temporal scales (<30 years) for corals with r-selected life history strategies.

Structural Complexity in Coral Reefs: Examination of a Novel Evaluation Tool on Different Spatial Scales

“…However, the implementation of these tools in coral reefs is constrained by several major disadvantages, including the high-cost of the devices and limited operational capacities, which may make them not applicable in many coralreef areas that reliant on local communities, and should therefore be based on inexpensive, easy to use, and broadly applicable measurement tools. The need for an improved heuristic definition and for better tools for the evaluation of structural complexity can be demonstrated by its diverse synonymous terms (e.g., habitat complexity, architectural complexity, topographic complexity, habitat heterogeneity, habitat diversity, substratum heterogeneity, spatial heterogeneity, and substratum irregularity; Gilinsky, 1984;Carleton and Sammarco, 1987;Connell and Jones, 1991;Thomas and Atkinson, 1997;Lapointe and Bourget, 1999;Tews et al, 2004;Sleeman et al, 2005;Alvarez-Filip et al, 2009), as well as the diverse definitions and measurement methods (e.g., McElhinny et al, 2005;Graham and Nash, 2013).…”

An ecological engineer maintains consistent spatial patterning, with implications for community‐wide effects

“…Spatial patterning among individuals within populations can set the stage for subsequent ecological dynamics (Levin 1992, Turner 2001 and can be an important component of successful conservation and restoration planning (Sleeman et al 2005, Miller et al 2010. Unfortunately, ecologists have carefully documented the influence of spatial distribution on ecological processes in only a few systems (e.g., de la Cruz et al 2008, Pringle et al 2010, Mayor et al 2013.…”

Dynamics and impact of the coral disease white plague: insights from a simulation model

“…Colonies affected by disease would recover if their selected disease mortality for a time step was less than a designated threshold. These properties reflected the inherent stochasticity of growth and mortality of corals (Baker & Weber 1975, Sleeman et al 2005) and the observation that diseased colonies often recover when lesion progression slows (Richardson et al 1998, Nugues 2002.…”

“…In order to understand community-level impacts from disturbances, individual-based models have been applied that are able to combine specieslevel variability and spatial patterns of colonies (e.g. Maguire & Porter 1977, Langmead & Sheppard 2004, Sleeman et al 2005, Wakeford et al 2008. Therefore, an individual-based modeling design that was able to represent the complex fore-reef coral communities of Little Cayman was used here to address questions of white plague dynamics and impact within them.…”