Restoration of critically endangered elkhorn coral (Acropora palmata) populations using larvae reared from wild-caught gametes

By V. Chamberland, Mark J. A. Vermeij, M. Brittsan, M. Carl, Mark Schick, Skylar Snowden, A. Schrier, D. Petersen. 2015

102 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Elkhorn coral (Acropora palmata) populations provide important ecological functions on shallow Caribbean reefs, many of which were lost when a disease reduced their abundance by more than 95% beginning in the mid-1970s. Since then, a lack of significant recovery has prompted rehabilitation initiatives throughout the Caribbean. Here, we report the first successful outplanting and long-term survival of A. palmata settlers reared from gametes collected in the field. A. palmata larvae were settled on clay substrates (substrate units) and either outplanted on the reef two weeks after settlement or kept in a land-based nursery. After 2.5 years, the survival rate of A. palmata settlers outplanted two weeks after settlement was 6.8 times higher (3.4%) than that of settlers kept in a land-based nursery (0.5%). Furthermore, 32% of the substrate units on the reef still harbored one or more well-developed recruit compared to 3% for substrate units kept in the nursery. In addition to increasing survival, outplanting A. palmata settlers shortly after settlement reduced the costs to produce at least one 2.5-year-old A. palmata individual from $325 to $13 USD. Thus, this study not only highlights the first successful long-term rearing of this critically endangered coral species, but also shows that early outplanting of sexually reared coral settlers can be more cost-effective than the traditional approach of nursery rearing for restoration efforts aimed at rehabilitating coral populations.

Subfields: Ecology, Global and Planetary Change, Oceanography

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/4fdf553dec16b623a5e71e13c0fa7624d3aff4e7

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Citations in the corpus

Coral restoration research and technical developments: what we have learned so far (2019, methodology): “Early postsettlement mortality of Acropora palmata was 86% during the first six months in the sea (Chamberland et al. 2015); the survivorship was 12–49% for 6–9 weeks in laboratory (Miller 2014).”
Sexual production of corals for reef restoration in the Anthropocene (2020, background): “The artificial substrate most suitable for reef restoration depends on the goal and scale of the project (Spieler et al. 2001, Chamberland et al. 2015, 2017, Barton et al. 2015), and practitioners should consider the effectiveness, cost, environmental impact and the feasibility of use in…”