AOML capacity for coral propagation and technology development
Problems:NOAA does not have a dedicated facility for the settlement and grow out of ESA-listed corals, critical for restoration and restoration researchState-of-the-art stress-testing facilities at AOML lack a source of coral critical for research Coral p...
Operationalizing Coral Population Level Assessment to Guide Restoration Monitoring and Success
To have wild coral populations growing comfortably above rates of replacement is a core goal of coral management, conservation, and restoration. In fact this metric - coral population-level growth rate - makes a robust and early indicator of realized resi...
The US Virgin Islands Coral Reef Restoration Plan (2023) provides a benchmark of stated goals and targets to track coral restoration success at 6 sites on St. Croix (4 sites) and St. Thomas (2 sites). The restorations are and will be implemented by multip...
Performance-driven restoration and data coordination
Background and problem: Coral reef ecosystem health has declined worldwide due to numerous anthropogenic stressors. In the western Atlantic and US Caribbean, coral cover has dropped to levels that are unsustainable for reef habitat persistence, with ...
Management of key fish taxa to promote the resiliency of coral reefs stems from the assumption that enhancing the abundance of these fishes, such as algal-grazing parrotfishes and surgeonfishes, ultimately increases the ecosystem functions they provide th...
The Division of Aquatic Resources' outreach and education team and PIRO HCD staff have determined that fisheries workshops are an excellent tool to engage the fishing community, introduce fishers to data collection, and incorporate local ecological knowle...
Reef fish calibration study to enable the use of long-term, fishery-independent data by fisheries and regional managers
Puerto Rico's coral reefs support multimillion dollar fishing and tourism industries (Ault et al. 2013). Fishes including hogfish (Lachnolaimus maximus), snappers (e.g., Lutjanus, Ocyurus spp.), groupers (e.g., Epinephelus, Mycteroperca spp.), and parrotf...
Testing strategies to increase thermal tolerance of restored corals in Florida
In recent years, coral propagation and reef restoration have reached ecologically meaningful scales, with 10,000s of nursery-grown staghorn corals being outplanted onto Florida reefs annually. While these propagation and restoration successes have been co...
Coral species identification training and capacity building workshop to support management of Indo-Pacific ESA-listed corals
Purpose/need: On October 2009, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) received a petition from the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) to list 83 species of coral as either threatened or endangered under the U.S.Endangered Species Act (ESA). After...
Enhancing Management Tools: Molecular Genetic Tracking to Target Microbial Pollution Sources in South Florida Coral Reefs
Both coastal inlets and treated wastewater outfalls are recognized as major pathways for microbial contaminants from Land-Based Sources of Pollution (LBSP) to enter Florida’s Southeastern coastal marine ecosystems (CRCP FY12 RFP, p.15), including an area ...
AOML capacity for coral propagation and technology development