scholarly journals Sexual production of corals for reef restoration in the Anthropocene

2020 ◽  
Vol 635 ◽  
pp. 203-232 ◽  
Author(s):  
CJ Randall ◽  
AP Negri ◽  
KM Quigley ◽  
T Foster ◽  
GF Ricardo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Scaling Up ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Broadcast Spawning ◽  
Reef Restoration ◽  
Coral Abundance ◽  
Coral Communities ◽  
Coral Reef Ecosystems ◽  
Sexual Production ◽  
Coral Recovery ◽  
Severe Disturbance

Coral-reef ecosystems are experiencing frequent and severe disturbance events that are reducing global coral abundance and potentially overwhelming the natural capacity for reefs to recover. While mitigation strategies for climate warming and other anthropogenic disturbances are implemented, coral restoration programmes are being established worldwide as an additional conservation measure to minimise coral loss and enhance coral recovery. Current restoration efforts predominantly rely on asexually produced coral fragments—a process with inherent practical constraints on the genetic diversity conserved and the spatial scale achieved. Because the resilience of coral communities has hitherto relied on regular renewal with natural recruits, the scaling-up of restoration programmes would benefit from greater use of sexually produced corals, which is an approach that is gaining momentum. Here we review the present state of knowledge of scleractinian coral sexual reproduction in the context of reef restoration, with a focus on broadcast-spawning corals. We identify key knowledge gaps and bottlenecks that currently constrain the sexual production of corals and consider the feasibility of using sexually produced corals for scaling-up restoration to the reef- and reef-system scales.

scholarly journals An emerging coral disease outbreak decimated Caribbean coral populations and reshaped reef functionality

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorenzo Alvarez-Filip ◽  
F. González-Barrios ◽  
Esmeralda Pérez-Cervantes ◽  
Ana Molina-Hernandez ◽  
Nuria Estrada-Saldívar
Keyword(s):  
Coral Species ◽  
Coral Disease ◽  
Structural Features ◽  
Caribbean Region ◽  
Carbonate Production ◽  
Coral Abundance ◽  
Caribbean Coral ◽  
Coral Communities ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
Physical Functionality

Abstract Diseases are major drivers of the deterioration of coral reefs, linked to major declines in coral abundance, reef functionality, and reef-related ecosystems services1-3. An outbreak of a new disease is currently rampaging through the populations of the remaining reef-building corals across the Caribbean region. The outbreak was first reported in Florida in 2014 and reached the northern Mesoamerican reef by summer 2018, where it spread across the ~ 450-km reef system only in a few months4. Rapid infection was generalized across all sites and mortality rates ranged from 94% to < 10% among the 21 afflicted coral species. This single event further modified the coral communities across the region by increasing the relative dominance of weedy corals and reducing reef functionality, both in terms of functional diversity and calcium carbonate production. This emergent disease is likely to become the most lethal disturbance ever recorded in the Caribbean, and it will likely result in the onset of a new functional regime where key reef-building and complex branching acroporids (a genus apparently unaffected) will once again become conspicuous structural features in reef systems with yet even lower levels of physical functionality.

scholarly journals Effect of coral reef restoration on demersal biodiversity in Okinawa, Japan

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Piera Biondi ◽  
Giovanni D Masucci ◽  
James D Reimer
Keyword(s):  
Coral Reef ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Live Coral ◽  
Coral Rubble ◽  
Okinawa Island ◽  
Reef Restoration ◽  
Coral Coverage ◽  
Coral Reef Ecosystems ◽  
Abundance And Diversity ◽  
And Control

Global climate change is leading to damage and loss of coral reef ecosystems. On subtropical Okinawa Island in southwestern Japan, the prefectural government is working on coral reef restoration by outplanting coral colonies from family Acroporidae back to reefs after initially farming colonies inside protected nurseries. In this study we evaluated the ongoing restoration efforts by comparing outplanted locations with nearby control locations with no restoration activity. We examined 3 sites on the coast of Onna Village on the west coast of the island; each site included an outplanted and control location. We used 1) coral rubble sampling to evaluate and compare abundance and diversity of rubble cryptofauna; and 2) coral reef monitoring using photograph transects to track live coral coverage. Results showed that rubble shape had a positive correlation with the numbers of animals found within rubble themselves and may therefore constitute a reliable abundance predictor. Outplanted locations did not show differences with the controls in rubble cryptofauna abundance, but had significantly lower coral coverage. Differences between sites were significant, for both rubble cryptofauna and coral coverage.We recommend; 1) to evaluate outplanting colonies from more stress-resistant genera in place of Acropora, 2) to conduct regular surveys to monitor the situation closely, and 3) to establish conservation and sustainable practices that could aid restoration efforts, reducing coral mortality of both outplanted and native colonies.

scholarly journals Effectiveness of coral relocation as a mitigation strategy in Kāne‘ohe Bay, Hawai‘i

PeerJ ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. e3346 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ku’ulei S. Rodgers ◽  
Koi Lorance ◽  
Angela Richards Donà ◽  
Yuko Stender ◽  
Claire Lager ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Coral Cover ◽  
Donor Site ◽  
Survival Rates ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
High Survival ◽  
Reef Restoration ◽  
Restoration Technique ◽  
Long Term Monitoring ◽  
Term Monitoring

Coral reef restoration and management techniques are in ever-increasing demand due to the global decline of coral reefs in the last several decades. Coral relocation has been established as an appropriate restoration technique in select cases, particularly where corals are scheduled for destruction. However, continued long-term monitoring of recovery of transplanted corals is seldom sustained. Removal of coral from a navigation channel and relocation to a similar nearby dredged site occurred in 2005. Coral recovery at the donor site and changes in fish populations at the receiving site were tracked periodically over the following decade. Coral regrowth at the donor site was rapid until a recent bleaching event reduced coral cover by more than half. The transplant of mature colonies increased spatial complexity at the receiving site, immediately increasing fish biomass, abundance, and species that was maintained throughout subsequent surveys. Our research indicates that unlike the majority of historical accounts of coral relocation in the Pacific, corals transplanted into wave-protected areas with similar conditions as the original site can have high survival rates. Data on long-term monitoring of coral transplants in diverse environments is central in developing management and mitigation strategies.

scholarly journals The Probability of an Unrecoverable Coral Community in Dongsha Atoll Marine National Park Due to Recurrent Disturbances

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (21) ◽  
pp. 9052
Author(s):  
Yu-Rong Cheng ◽  
Chi-Hsiang Chin ◽  
Ding-Fa Lin ◽  
Chao-Kang Wang
Keyword(s):  
Coral Reef ◽  
National Park ◽  
Anthropogenic Impacts ◽  
Sustainable Use ◽  
Coral Community ◽  
Functional Ecology ◽  
The Past ◽  
Coral Communities ◽  
Coral Reef Ecosystems ◽  
Dongsha Atoll

In recent decades, coral reefs worldwide have been impacted annually by climate change and anthropogenic impacts. Marine parks are utilized to protect coral reef ecosystems and to ensure it is in sustainable use. In the present study, a 15-year change in coverage and composition of a hard coral community at Dongsha Atoll Marine National Park (DAMNP) was examined from 2005 to 2019. The reef has experienced several disturbances, including 11 typhoons and six coral bleaching events. A 34.39% decline in coral coverage had been recorded over the past 15 years in response to multiple and recurrent natural disturbances. The coral communities and functional ecology of the Dongsha Atoll changed during this period. The average dissimilarities in coral communities ranged from 55.38 to 59.02%. The dramatic decrease in the abundance of branching corals in addition to a slight increase in massive and encrusting corals suggest the habitat has simplified. The degraded coral reef communities represent a low resilience ecosystem, even though the DAMNP has been established. Without effective management, the coral reef ecosystem of the Dongsha Atoll may not persist due to repeated impacts from recurrent disturbances.

scholarly journals Hartree-Fock on a superconducting qubit quantum computer

Science ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 369 (6507) ◽  
pp. 1084-1089 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Frank Arute ◽  
Kunal Arya ◽  
Ryan Babbush ◽  
Dave Bacon ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Computer ◽  
Scaling Up ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Superconducting Qubit ◽  
Hartree Fock ◽  
Givens Rotation ◽  
Error Mitigation ◽  
Fermionic Systems ◽  
Isomerization Mechanism ◽  
Computational Basis

The simulation of fermionic systems is among the most anticipated applications of quantum computing. We performed several quantum simulations of chemistry with up to one dozen qubits, including modeling the isomerization mechanism of diazene. We also demonstrated error-mitigation strategies based on N-representability that dramatically improve the effective fidelity of our experiments. Our parameterized ansatz circuits realized the Givens rotation approach to noninteracting fermion evolution, which we variationally optimized to prepare the Hartree-Fock wave function. This ubiquitous algorithmic primitive is classically tractable to simulate yet still generates highly entangled states over the computational basis, which allowed us to assess the performance of our hardware and establish a foundation for scaling up correlated quantum chemistry simulations.

scholarly journals Differential recovery from mass coral bleaching on naturally extreme reef environments in NW Australia

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Verena Schoepf ◽  
E. Maria U. Jung ◽  
Malcolm McCulloch ◽  
Nicole E White ◽  
Michael Stat ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Coral Reefs ◽  
Temperature Variability ◽  
Live Coral ◽  
Recovery Capacity ◽  
Reef Environments ◽  
Coral Communities ◽  
Coral Recovery ◽  
Nw Australia ◽  
Mass Bleaching

Coral reefs are severely threatened by climate change and recurrent mass bleaching events, highlighting the need for a better understanding of the factors driving recovery and resilience both at the community and species level. While temperature variability has been shown to promote coral heat tolerance, it remains poorly understood how this influences coral recovery capacity. Similarly, few studies have investigated how the presence of cryptic species influences bleaching and recovery responses. Using an integrated ecological, physiological and genomic approach, we examined the recovery of both coral communities and their dominant species from the 2016 mass bleaching event in the macrotidal Kimberley region, NW Australia. We show that recovery of coral communities inhabiting adjacent but environmentally contrasting reef habitats differed dramatically following unprecedented bleaching in 2016. Both intertidal (thermally extreme) and subtidal (thermally moderate) habitats experienced extensive bleaching (72-81%), but subtidal coral communities had a greater percentage of severely bleached corals than the intertidal community (76% versus 53%). Similarly, subtidal Acropora aspera corals suffered much greater losses of chlorophyll a than intertidal conspecifics (96% versus 46%). The intertidal coral community fully recovered to its pre-bleaching configuration within six months, whereas the adjacent subtidal suffered extensive mortality (68% loss of live coral cover). Despite the presence of three cryptic genetic lineages in the dominant coral species, the physiological response of A. aspera was independent of host cryptic genetic diversity. Furthermore, both intertidal and subtidal A. aspera harbored symbionts in the genus Cladocopium (previously clade C). Our findings highlight the important role of tidally-controlled temperature variability in promoting coral recovery capacity, and we propose that shallow reef environments characterized by strong environmental gradients may generally promote coral resilience to extreme climatic events. Thermally variable reef environments may therefore provide important spatial refugia for coral reefs under rapid climate change.

scholarly journals Effects of terrestrial runoff on the coral communities in Santiago Bay, Colima, Mexican Pacific Coast

2016 ◽  
Vol 64 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Agustín Liñán-Cabello ◽  
Aramis Olivos-Ortiz ◽  
Sonia Quijano-Scheggia ◽  
Daniela Muñiz Anguiano ◽  
María Luisa Reséndiz-Flores ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Coral Reef ◽  
Pacific Coast ◽  
Geographical Location ◽  
Coral Community ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Mexican Pacific ◽  
The Status ◽  
Coral Communities ◽  
Coral Reef Ecosystems ◽  
Coral Health

Coral reef ecosystems are under stress of different origins, from factors including sedimentation, fragmentation, overfishing, and tourism, depending on their geographical location, depth, and proximity to recreation areas. In this study of Juluapan Lagoon, we examined the relationship between various water-quality attributes and the status indicators of the coral community at La Boquita reef. During 2011 (12 months of sampling), six monitoring stations in the Juluapan lagoon were established in order to observe the gradient of the distribution of the physicochemical parameters: three stations on the upper part, or BI, (S4 to S6) and three more in the lower part, or BII, (S1 to S3). A control station (CS) was located in the coral reef close to the lagoon channel, and where dissolved inorganic nutrients and cellular carbon content were determined. Additionally, we considered the monitoring of three of the eight largest coral structures/headlands of this community: the first was the station closest to the channel communicating with Juluapan lagoon (C1), the second was in the intermediate region with respect to that lagoon (C2), and the third was farthest from the channel (C3). Three line intercept transects (LIT) 30 m in length and perpendicular to the coast provenance were established in each station, and the parameters indicative of the status of corals were evaluated in an area of 60 m2 on each transect (180 m2 by the station). Turbidity, evidence of fishing, signs of settling, algal coverage, abundance of fish, rate of sediment, and coral health records (as for CoralWach chart) were determined in situ and from digital photographs and videos. Considering various community status indicators used in the reef area, we could recognize a state of general deterioration, which was reflected in the loss of 17 % of coral coverage. The main anthropogenic disturbances in adjacent areas to La Boquita reef included wastewater discharges into the lagoon, tourist developments in the coastal zone, deforestation and erosion resulting from inappropriate development, and the runoff of nutrients from agricultural lands nearby the lagoon. All these significantly contributed to the nutrient-enriched waters of the lagoon, especially in summer, with negative effects on the coral community. Continued exposure to these factors, coupled with the lack of control over other anthropogenic components, has promoted the maintenance of a chronic stress state in the studied coral community. Our findings highlight the need for the development of appropriate coastal management and conservation policies for the coral reefs of the Mexican Pacific Coast.

scholarly journals The impacts of competitive interactions on coral colonies after transplantation: a multispecies experiment from the Florida Keys, US

2020 ◽  
Vol 96 (4) ◽  
pp. 805-818 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caitlin Lustic ◽  
Kerry Maxwell ◽  
Erich Bartels ◽  
Brian Reckenbeil ◽  
Emily Utset ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Florida Keys ◽  
Acropora Cervicornis ◽  
Multifaceted Approach ◽  
Reef Restoration ◽  
Palythoa Caribaeorum ◽  
Coral Abundance ◽  
Orbicella Faveolata ◽  
Chronic Stressors ◽  
Montastraea Cavernosa

Reef restoration programs in Florida, US, focused initially on Acropora, but there is now a need to include other species that have also experienced declines. An outplanting experiment using Acropora cervicornis, Montastraea cavernosa, and Orbicella faveolata was conducted to compare performance among species and evaluate the impacts of contact interactions with macroalgae and the zoanthid Palythoa caribaeorum. Montastraea cavernosa and O. faveolata showed high survivorship (78% and 92%, respectively) over 18 mo. However, surviving colonies had limited growth and lost tissue due to factors like predation and disease. In contrast, A. cervicornis showed exponential growth. Colonies in contact with macroalgae showed the lowest survivorship. Removing macroalgae provided no long-term benefits in growth and a slight improvement in colony survivorship. Acropora cervicornis in contact with Palythoa grew 45% less than controls. Our study showed that: (1) coral taxa with massive morphologies (40–130 cm2) can be transplanted with low colony mortality but that their slow growth is not enough to balance partial tissue mortality caused by multiple chronic stressors; (2) removal of macroalgae at the time of outplanting improves colony survivorship; (3) periodic removal of macroalgae does not enhance growth; and (4) contact with Palythoa should be avoided. The impacts of contact competition were variable among species with different colony morphologies, with A. cervicornis showing the highest susceptibility to competition from algae and Palythoa. While restoration can rapidly increase coral abundance, long-term success will require a multifaceted approach to reduce the impacts of chronic reef stressors on wild and outplanted corals alike.

scholarly journals The Active Reef Restoration Toolbox is a Vehicle for Coral Resilience and Adaptation in a Changing World

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (7) ◽  
pp. 201 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rinkevich
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Ecological Engineering ◽  
Climate Change Impacts ◽  
Traditional Management ◽  
Reef Restoration ◽  
Management Measures ◽  
Short Period ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Coral Reef Ecosystems ◽  
Changing World

The accelerating marks of climate change on coral-reef ecosystems, combined with the recognition that traditional management measures are not efficient enough to cope with climate change tempo and human footprints, have raised a need for new approaches to reef restoration. The most widely used approach is the “coral gardening” tenet; an active reef restoration tactic based on principles, concepts, and theories used in silviculture. During the relatively short period since its inception, the gardening approach has been tested globally in a wide range of reef sites, and on about 100 coral species, utilizing hundreds of thousands of nursery-raised coral colonies. While still lacking credibility for simulating restoration scenarios under forecasted climate change impacts, and with a limited adaptation toolkit used in the gardening approach, it is still deficient. Therefore, novel restoration avenues have recently been suggested and devised, and some have already been tested, primarily in the laboratory. Here, I describe seven classes of such novel avenues and tools, which include the improved gardening methodologies, ecological engineering approaches, assisted migration/colonization, assisted genetics/evolution, assisted microbiome, coral epigenetics, and coral chimerism. These are further classified into three operation levels, each dependent on the success of the former level. Altogether, the seven approaches and the three operation levels represent a unified active reef restoration toolbox, under the umbrella of the gardening tenet, focusing on the enhancement of coral resilience and adaptation in a changing world.

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