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Turning casualty into opportunity: fragmenting dislodged colonies is effective for restoring reefs of a Mediterranean endemic coral
- Source :
- Ecological Engineering. 98:206-212
- Publication Year :
- 2017
- Publisher :
- Elsevier BV, 2017.
-
Abstract
- Within the framework of ecosystem-based management, restoration appears as a sensible option to counteract the global decline of coral reefs. Several techniques involving sexual and asexual coral propagules have been used for the restoration of reefs. Culturing of fragments has proved fruitful since it takes advantage of the capability of corals to asexually reproduce, providing a number of novel colonies that can be replanted. This method however, when using fragments detached from a colony, might be stressful for the wild donor. Astroides calycularis is an endemic and endangered Mediterranean scleractinian coral forming massive colonies mostly at shallow depth. It is subject to anthropogenic impact, particularly from damage due to accidental contacts by SCUBA divers, and it is expected to suffer from sea storms of increasing power under the projected climate change scenarios. Corals of opportunity (i.e. dislodged colonies found alive on the seabed) may be a useful resource for the restoration of A. calycularis reefs, given that the fragment-based transplant technique is effective for this species as it is for other massive corals. A one-year transplant experiment was carried out along an exposed rocky shore in NW Sicily (Mediterranean Sea) to test the feasibility of using fragments of corals of opportunity for restoration purposes. The transplants revealed high survival rates and higher number of new polyps than in control colonies. The original size of transplanted fragments did not influence their capability to bud new polyps and was not related to their survival rate. The applied technique provides the opportunity to restore rocky reefs, even the very shallow ones, through direct transplant of coral fragments, thus making reef restoration a feasible option in ecosystem-based management plans for this species.
- Subjects :
- 0106 biological sciences
Bioconstruction
Environmental Engineering
Coral
Scleractinia
Hermatypic coral
Transplant
Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law
Biology
010603 evolutionary biology
01 natural sciences
Coral nubbin
Mediterranean Sea
14. Life underwater
Aquaculture of coral
Reef
Nature and Landscape Conservation
geography
geography.geographical_feature_category
Resilience of coral reefs
Ecology
010604 marine biology & hydrobiology
Recreational diving
fungi
technology, industry, and agriculture
Coral reef
biochemical phenomena, metabolism, and nutrition
biology.organism_classification
population characteristics
Environmental issues with coral reefs
geographic locations
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 09258574
- Volume :
- 98
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Ecological Engineering
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....b4457eda19841695264104fd6a11403b
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoleng.2016.10.075