Ongoing climate change and frequent anomalous thermal events have greatly contributed to the deterioration of coral reefs worldwide, exacerbating declines in coral reef formation and ecosystem service provision. Under this climate change scenario, the development and improvement of restoration techniques will be required to cope with coral reef degradation. This study demonstrates the potential use of direct relocation of coral of opportunity as an effective long-term ecological restoration tool. We assessed coral growth parameters (cm yr(-1)), attachment rate (%), ecological volume (cm(3) yr(-1)), including long-term evaluation of annual live coral cover (%) and calcium carbonate production (kg CaCO3 m(-2) yr(-1)) during 5-years (2013-2018) using resilient branching coral Pocillopora spp. The results show a survivorship of 67%, high self-attachment (100%) during the first 6-months, and size augmentation of similar to 167% in growth parameters (2.94-4.47 cm yr(-1)) and similar to 418% in ecological volume. Over the long-term, live coral cover increased from 13 to 28% ( + 4% per year) with an accumulated carbonate production of 14.53 kg CaCO3 m(-2) (similar to 3 kg CaCO3 m(-2) yr(-1)) resulting from the restoration process, and we found evidence for high resistance and recovery after periods of thermal anomalies. The data validate the use of direct propagation of corals of opportunity as a one of the most feasible and practical techniques to long-term restoration of damaged and degraded coral reef areas, which may help in their structural rehabilitation, improving coral communities and biodiversity maintenance.
1.Tecnol Nacl Mexico, Inst Tecnol Bahia de Banderas, Crucero Punta Mita S-N, Bahia De Banderas 63734, Nayarit, Mexico 2.Univ Guadalajara, Ctr Univ Costa, Ctr Invest Costeras, Lab Ecol Marina, Ave Univ 203, Puerto Vallarta 48280, Jalisco, Mexico 3.Univ Nacl Autonoma Mexico, Unidad Acad Mazatlan, Inst Ciencias Mar & Limnol, Av Joel Montes Camarena S-N, Mazatlan 82040, Sinaloa, Mexico
Recommended Citation:
Adolfo Tortolero-Langarica, J. J.,Rodriguez-Troncoso, Alma P.,Cupul-Magana, Amilcar L.,et al. Accelerated recovery of calcium carbonate production in coral reefs using low-tech ecological restoration[J]. ECOLOGICAL ENGINEERING,2019-01-01,128:89-97