Rebuilding 'decimated' coral reefs goal of propagation program

Rebuilding 'decimated' coral reefs goal of propagation program


By KEITH MORELLI | The Tampa Tribune
Published: February 26, 2010





Scientists at The Florida Aquarium are involved in new projects that will help save damaged reefs around the world.

Mother Nature is not cooperating with a human effort to nudge damaged coral reefs in the Florida Keys back into robust colorful brilliance.
The program to propagate coral reefs that stretch from Key Largo to the Dry Tortugas has fallen to a group of scientists with The Florida Aquarium, the University of Florida, and the National Marine Sanctuary Program.
A recent diving trip in the Keys has revealed devastation to coral reefs in shallow water. The cause: the January cold snap that kept the Sunshine State shivering for 11 straight days. The snap left Keys coral shivering in 45 degree water; cold enough to kill them. Reefs in deeper water weathered the cold, scientists said.
The upshot is that the job of rebuilding reefs one tiny organism at a time becomes much more important.
It's been no secret that the reefs along the Keys and in the Caribbean have been failing for some time – victims of dredging, ship groundings, divers who pluck fish and coral for their aquariums, global warming and destructive storms.
"Caribbean-wide, reefs have been in decline for about three decades for various reasons," said Bill Precht, damage assessment and research coordinator for the National Marine Sanctuary Program in the Keys. Other factors include pandemic tropical diseases that take their toll on reef organisms.
Staghorn and elkhorn coral were just about wiped out by diseases in the 1970s and 1980s, he said. The reason remains a mystery. It could be as simple as ships coming through the Panama Canal dumping Pacific bilge water into the Caribbean. That water may have contained viruses, bacteria or other organisms that feasted on the locals, already weakened by the effects of global warming, he said.
In the mid-1980s, another disease killed 98 percent of the long-spined black sea urchins in the Caribbean, he said, basically eliminating a main eater of algae.
"They were the lawnmowers on the reef," he said.
That event dramatically changed the makeup of Caribbean reefs, he said. The ecosystem shifted from a coral-dominated system to an algal-dominated system.
For about three years, marine biologists have been working on ways to restore reefs in the Keys to the way they were: robust with life, brilliant in color, vibrant in biodiversity.
Scientists with The Florida Aquarium's Coral Propagation Project began the second phase of the program last week, plunking down coral fragments off the coast of Key Largo. That's when they found most of the shallow water reefs – 10 feet deep or less – had been destroyed by the cold.
Reefs threatened for years
"Decimated," said Allan Marshall, vice president of biological operations at The Florida Aquarium. "They have recently become deserts."
He said that coral reefs have been threatened for years and that the work local scientists are doing is the first real step in trying to save the ecosystem. With the amount of corals lost in January's cold snap, he said, "the urgency of this work takes on a whole new meaning."
Marshall likened the coral reef devastation to the deforestation of the rainforest. Both are fragile ecosystems that are home to thousands of unique creatures. In both cases, the slightest disruption can ripple into real problems.
He said the project's efforts "can kick-start the growth of these coral formations and cut years off the healing process."
For three years, the aquarium's Global Coral Reef Institute has been assessing the health of reefs from around the world, with a focus on the reefs in the Keys and a mass planting of living coral fragments in a one-acre site near Key Largo in the hopes of creating a reef on a sandy bottom.
The Global Coral Reef Institute has established criteria for assessing coral grown in a tank, and a certificate is issued if the specimen is healthy. The certificate is needed to proceed with any propagation program anywhere on the planet, Marshall said. Interest in the program has come from as far away as Italy and Japan.
The propagation program goes like this:
Small coral fragments are gathered from a reef damaged by a ship grounding or a construction or dredging project. They are taken to a lab, where the coral is cut, or fragmented, into several pieces. Each piece is glued to a small disk of concrete about the size of a cookie. The sample grows for at least six months in the lab, under the watchful eyes of biologists, and when it is big and healthy enough, it's brought to the site and plunked down into the open water.
By taking the specimens out of the wild and into a controlled environment, the coral fragment heals and gives scientists a chance to observe its growth and assess its chance of survival. Only if it is thriving does an organism – which is examined by a marine veterinarian before getting the needed health certificate – become a candidate to plant in the wild.
Down on the coral farm
Coral destined for the Key Largo site and another reef site off Key West is being propagated at the University of Florida's Tropical Aquaculture Laboratory in Ruskin.
Right now, there are two tanks, each about 8 feet long, 2 feet wide and 2 feet deep, with about 100 pieces of coral being tended, lab director Craig Watson said.
Watson said the project is in its infancy.
He's more focused on the research part of it, like, "can we grow corals in greenhouses inland in Ruskin and successfully plant them out on site in the Florida Keys. There's lot to learn. We've had a good survival rate so far."
Creating reefs on sandy bottoms and restoring reefs that have been damaged or destroyed won't happen within the current scope of the program, he said.
"This is research to see if this can be done," he said. "But, I'd say at some point, this all has got to be ramped up to much larger scale."
The weakened reefs in the Keys are only part of the problem, said Precht, from his National Marine Sanctuary Program office in Key Largo. He's been observing the reefs for decades, having first dived in the Keys in the 1970s.
"Reefs are among the richest ecosystems on the planet," he said. "They have high biodiversity; they are the rainforests of the sea. They are incredibly important."
He said the reefs along the Keys are the only ones in the contiguous United States.
"These are the only true reefs in North America," he said. "And, with that said, they are living on the edge. They are on the edge of the tropics, the subtropics and temperate environments. In short they – and all reefs in the Caribbean – are an ecosystem unlike reefs anywhere else in the world. They are unique."
And then, there's the economic benefit to the state.
Most commercial fisheries in South Florida center on the reefs, he said, from fin fish to shell fish.
"Without the reefs, the seagrass beds and all the other parts of the reef ecosystem, we wouldn't have the tremendous commercial fishery we have," Precht said.
The robust dive industry also depends on the health of the Keys reefs, he said.
"These are only reefs in United States you can drive to," he said. "You can drive here from Kansas, take a short boat ride and dive a reef. Because of that, the reefs along the Keys are one of largest and greatest dive destinations in the world. The dive industry in South Florida is worth billions of dollars a year."
That is just one reason why it's important to save the fragile ecosystem.
Just as vital, Precht said, is the scientific data that comes out of the program. Scientists involved can figure out the reproduction of organisms and how they are faring under different, controlled conditions. The genetics also are being studied, he said.
Admittedly, it could be years, probably decades before budding reefs from the propagation project are noticed.
"Some corals grow rapidly and others grow slowly but live a long time," he said. "If we look for success in one- or two-year increments, we're not looking at the right time scale. It will be decadal, if our expectations are realistic, before we're going to see some really wonderful things."
In the end, the payoff will be worth it, he said.
"I saw what reefs in the Keys used to look like," he said, and he hopes the propagation project will restore the reefs not only in the Keys but all over the Caribbean.
"I wouldn't do what I do for a living if I thought it was game over," he said. "It's not game over."

I love seeing people trying to help. No matter how big you are or how small you are it's still helping.

Very COOL!!! Good to see.

what can we do to help

Originally Posted by Choptop

what can we do to help

Time and or money would be about the only thing that would accept.

yeah they all want money to volunteer work. I wonder if you can contact someone like University of Florida Tropical Aquaculture Laboratory and send them frags if it would help.

It will be intresting to keeep up with that one,


Bill

yes it would i would help but money is something most of us dont have so time would be all we could offer

Originally Posted by rgrking

yeah they all want money to volunteer work. I wonder if you can contact someone like University of Florida Tropical Aquaculture Laboratory and send them frags if it would help.

They cant use corals from us. most corals we keep arent atlantic corals and even if they were they would never accept them because there is no way to tell what diseases, predators or parasites they have been expossed to.