Abstract
In recent decades, the Florida reef tract has lost over 95% of its coral cover. Although isolated coral assemblages persist, coral restoration programs are attempting to recover local coral populations. Listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, Acropora cervicornis is the most widely targeted coral species for restoration in Florida. Yet strategies are still maturing to enhance the survival of nursery‐reared outplants of A. cervicornis colonies on natural reefs. This study examined the survival of 22,634 A. cervicornis colonies raised in nurseries along the Florida reef tract and outplanted to six reef habitats in seven geographical subregions between 2012 and 2018. A Cox proportional hazards regression was used within a Bayesian framework to examine the effects of seven variables: (1) coral‐colony size at outplanting, (2) coral‐colony attachment method, (3) genotypic diversity of outplanted A. cervicornis clusters, (4) reef habitat, (5) geographical subregion, (6) latitude, and (7) the year of monitoring. The best models included coral‐colony size at outplanting, reef habitat, geographical subregion, and the year of monitoring. Survival was highest when colonies were larger than 15 cm (total linear extension), when outplanted to back‐reef and fore‐reef habitats, and when outplanted in Biscayne Bay and Broward–Miami subregions, in the higher latitudes of the Florida reef tract. This study points to several variables that influence the survival of outplanted A. cervicornis colonies and highlights a need to refine restoration strategies to help restore their population along the Florida reef tract.
Highlights
Over the last four decades, thermal-stress events and disease have caused rapid declines in coral populations worldwide (Hoegh-Guldberg et al 2007; Edwards & Gomez 2007; Hughes et al 2018)
We collated data on the survival of 22,634 A. cervicornis colonies raised in nurseries along the Florida reef tract and outplanted to six natural reef habitats in seven geographical subregions between 2012 and 2018 from the following six coral restoration programs: (1) The Nature Conservancy, (2) the Mote Marine Laboratory, (3) the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, (4) the Coral Restoration Foundation, (5) the University of Miami, and (6) Nova Southeastern University (Figure 1; Table 1; extended details of methods are provided in Supplement S1)
This current study examined the relationships between the survival of the A. cervicornis colony outplants and the effects of seven variables: (i) coralcolony size at outplanting, (ii) coral-colony attachment method, (iii) genetic diversity of outplanted A. cervicornis clusters, (iv) reef habitat, (v) geographical subregion, (vi) latitude, and (vii) the year of monitoring
Summary
Over the last four decades, thermal-stress events and disease have caused rapid declines in coral populations worldwide (Hoegh-Guldberg et al 2007; Edwards & Gomez 2007; Hughes et al 2018). Some of the most heavily impacted regions have been the Caribbean (Aronson & Precht 2001) and Florida (Porter & Meier 1992; Toth et al 2014; Precht et al 2016; Walton et al 2018) This decline included unprecedented mortality of Acropora cervicornis and Acropora palmata, two historically important reef-building coral species in the Caribbean. In Florida, A. palmata was dominant on reef crests on fore reefs, and A. cervicornis was dominant between 5 – 25 m on fore reefs and in shallower habitats on sheltered patch and back reefs (Agassiz 1885; Vaughan 1919; Goldberg 1973; Marszalek et al 1977; Precht & Miller 2007) Both acroporids suffered major declines because of white-band disease in the late 1970s and early 1980s (Aronson & Precht 2001; Gardner et al 2003). Four decades after the initial mortality events, acroporid populations along the Florida reef tract continue to decline (Ruzicka et al 2013; Toth et al 2014)
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