STAGHORN CORAL NURSERY AND RESTORATION EXPANSION PROJECT

As recently as the 1980s, staghorn coral was a major reef building coral species found in the waters off Florida and throughout the Caribbean. These fast growing corals formed dense, three-dimensional thickets which contributed significantly to reef growth, island formation, coastal protection and fisheries habitat diversity. Due to a variety of threats including coral bleaching, disease, hurricanes, increased predation, algae overgrowth, direct human disturbances, climate change and others, staghorn coral populations have declined up to 97% throughout the U.S. Caribbean since the late 1980’s. As a result, in May 2006 NOAA’s Fisheries Service designated staghorn (Acropora cervicornis) and elkhorn (Acropora palmata) coral as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

The first staghorn coral nursery and restoration efforts in the Florida Keys started when staghorn corals naturally settled on a privately owned permitted live-rock farm in the Upper Keys in 2000. In December 2004, The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and Coral Restoration Foundation (CRF) partnered to initiate a pilot study focused on restoring degraded reefs in the Upper Florida Keys. Cuttings of the original settled coral colonies, along with other cuttings collected from wild colonies outside the live rock farm, were grown in an underwater coral nursery. After one year, the corals were outplanted to reef sites in distinct cross-shelf zones, from nearshore to offshore, and monitored to evaluate survivorship and growth rates as related to coral genotype.

In April 2007, Mote Marine Laboratory, along with the Coral Restoration Foundation, University of Miami, and NOVA Southeastern University, partnered with The Nature Conservancy to expand on the successful Upper Keys restoration efforts and replicate the coral nursery and outplanting approach in the Lower Keys, Biscayne, and Broward sub-regions of the Florida Reef Tract. This expanded project allowed for comparisons between genotypic fitness in staghorn coral across the Florida Reef Tract and evaluation of sub-regional and zonal variation in survivorship and growth in order to establish a solid basis for larger-scale restoration efforts.

In 2009 The Nature Conservancy was funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestiment Act and NOAA’s Restoration Center to further expand Mote's staghorn coral nursery and restoration efforts, and develop a large-scale, regional restoration effort aimed at aiding in the recovery of populations of staghorn coral in Florida and the U.S. Virgin Islands. This current effort will aim to significantly increase the amount of corals grown at existing nursery sites, as well as develop new partnerships and establish new nurseries and restoration sites in the Middle Florida Keys and Dry Tortugas subregions of Florida, as well as in St. Thomas and St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

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Since 2007, Mote divers have maintained staghorn corals at an underwater coral nursery off of the Lower Florida Keys. New funding will allow for significant expansion.

Newly mounted staghorn coral

Routine monitoring and maintenance

Outplanted coral at restoration site