Koval Gammon, Rivas Nicolas, D'Alessandro Martine, Hesley Dalton, Santos Rolando, Lirman Diego
Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, University of Miami, Miami, FL, United States of America.
Department of Earth and Environment, Florida International University, Miami, FL, United States of America.
PeerJ. 2020 Oct 2;8:e9978. doi: 10.7717/peerj.9978. eCollection 2020.
As coral reefs continue to decline globally, coral restoration practitioners have explored various approaches to return coral cover and diversity to decimated reefs. While branching coral species have long been the focus of restoration efforts, the recent development of the microfragmentation coral propagation technique has made it possible to incorporate massive coral species into restoration efforts. Microfragmentation (i.e., the process of cutting large donor colonies into small fragments that grow fast) has yielded promising early results. Still, best practices for outplanting fragmented corals of massive morphologies are continuing to be developed and modified to maximize survivorship. Here, we compared outplant success among four species of massive corals ( and ) in Southeast Florida, US. Within the first week following coral deployment, predation impacts by fish on the small (<5 cm) outplanted colonies resulted in both the complete removal of colonies and significant tissue damage, as evidenced by bite marks. In our study, 8-27% of fragments from four species were removed by fish within one week, with removal rates slowing down over time. Of the corals that remained after one week, over 9% showed signs of fish predation. Our findings showed that predation by corallivorous fish taxa like butterflyfishes (Chaetodontidae), parrotfishes (Scaridae), and damselfishes (Pomacentridae) is a major threat to coral outplants, and that susceptibility varied significantly among coral species and outplanting method. Moreover, we identify factors that reduce predation impacts such as: (1) using cement instead of glue to attach corals, (2) elevating fragments off the substrate, and (3) limiting the amount of skeleton exposed at the time of outplanting. These strategies are essential to maximizing the efficiency of outplanting techniques and enhancing the impact of reef restoration.
随着全球珊瑚礁持续衰退，珊瑚礁修复从业者探索了各种方法，试图让遭到严重破坏的珊瑚礁恢复珊瑚覆盖率和多样性。长期以来，分支珊瑚物种一直是修复工作的重点，但微碎片化珊瑚繁殖技术的最新发展使将块状珊瑚物种纳入修复工作成为可能。微碎片化（即将大型供体群体切割成生长迅速的小碎片的过程）已取得了令人鼓舞的初步成果。不过，为了使块状形态的碎片化珊瑚的移栽成活率最大化，相关的最佳做法仍在不断发展和完善。在此，我们比较了美国佛罗里达州东南部四种块状珊瑚（和）的移栽成功率。在珊瑚移栽后的第一周内，鱼类对小型（<5厘米）移栽群体的捕食影响导致群体被完全清除，并有明显的组织损伤，咬痕就是证据。在我们的研究中，四种珊瑚物种的8-27%的碎片在一周内被鱼类清除，清除率随着时间推移而减缓。在一周后存活下来的珊瑚中，超过9%有鱼类捕食的迹象。我们的研究结果表明，蝴蝶鱼（蝴蝶鱼科）、鹦嘴鱼（鹦嘴鱼科）和雀鲷（雀鲷科）等食珊瑚鱼类的捕食是珊瑚移栽的主要威胁，而且不同珊瑚物种和移栽方法的易感性差异很大。此外，我们确定了一些能减少捕食影响的因素，比如：（1）用水泥而非胶水固定珊瑚；（2）将碎片抬高离开基质；（3）在移栽时限制暴露的骨骼量。这些策略对于最大化移栽技术的效率和增强珊瑚礁修复的效果至关重要。
