New Techniques for Restoring Coral

For the past few years I have followed the efforts of the Coral Restoration Foundation in Key largo and Rescue a Reef at the University of Miami to restore degraded reefs off the Florida coast by growing staghorn coral before transplanting it to various reefs.  A report on the website Phys.org describes a new technique, whereby researchers "sow" corals over a reef-an effort that appears to be more efficient in transplanting coral. 

"The troubling loss of coral reefs worldwide has prompted scientists and conservationists to assist the reefs' recovery through active restoration approaches. Transplanting corals on degraded reefs aims at increasing coral cover and subsequently promoting structural habitats. Until now, actual restoration has been done manually by divers, who had to attach each coral, whether a fragment or a coral recruit settled on a substrate, individually.

Today, reef degradation occurs at a scale of hundreds and thousands of square kilometers. In contrast, current restoration activities are usually less than one hectare in scale. These efforts are limited by the fact that only labor-intensive, and therefore costly, techniques are currently available. "If we want restoration to play a more meaningful role in coral reef conservation, we need to think in new directions. Our sowing approach is an important step towards reaching this goal since it will allow the handling of large numbers of corals in a very short amount of time at significantly lower costs", says Dr. Dirk Petersen, project lead and Executive Director of SECORE International."


Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-01-corals-approach-paves-large-scale-coral.html#jCp