Critically endangered staghorn corals are benefiting from coral gardening in the Caribbean
- New research finds that “coral gardening," which involves planting fragments of nursery-raised coral on reefs in the wild to replenish depleted coral colonies, is playing a key role in the restoration of staghorn coral reef systems in the Caribbean.
- A study published in the journal Coral Reefs in June looks at how successful restoration efforts have been at several sites in Florida and Puerto Rico over the first two years of a staghorn coral (Acropora cervicornis) gardening program.
- Researchers collected data on the survival and productivity of thousands of individual A. cervicornis colonies within six different geographical regions in order to develop benchmarks that can be used to assess coral reef restoration efforts and their impacts on the overall ecosystem.
- Aronson, R., Bruckner, A., Moore, J., Precht, B. & E. Weil. 2008. Acropora cervicornis. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2008: e.T133381A3716457.http://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2008.RLTS.T133381A3716457.en. Downloaded on 08 August 2017.
- Schopmeyer, S. A., Lirman, D., Bartels, E., Gilliam, D. S., Goergen, E. A., Griffin, S. P., … & Walter, C. S. (2017). Regional restoration benchmarks for Acropora cervicornis. Coral Reefs, 1-11.doi:10.1007/s00338-017-1596-3
Published August 9, 2017
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