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Restoration of coral populations in light of genetic diversity estimates

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Abstract

Due to the importance of preserving the genetic integrity of populations, strategies to restore damaged coral reefs should attempt to retain the allelic diversity of the disturbed population; however, genetic diversity estimates are not available for most coral populations. To provide a generalized estimate of genetic diversity (in terms of allelic richness) of scleractinian coral populations, the literature was surveyed for studies describing the genetic structure of coral populations using microsatellites. The mean number of alleles per locus across 72 surveyed scleractinian coral populations was 8.27 (±0.75 SE). In addition, population genetic datasets from four species (Acropora palmata, Montastraea cavernosa, Montastraea faveolata and Pocillopora damicornis) were analyzed to assess the minimum number of donor colonies required to retain specific proportions of the genetic diversity of the population. Rarefaction analysis of the population genetic datasets indicated that using 10 donor colonies randomly sampled from the original population would retain >50% of the allelic diversity, while 35 colonies would retain >90% of the original diversity. In general, scleractinian coral populations are genetically diverse and restoration methods utilizing few clonal genotypes to re-populate a reef will diminish the genetic integrity of the population. Coral restoration strategies using 10–35 randomly selected local donor colonies will retain at least 50–90% of the genetic diversity of the original population.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary and the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary, and the Governments of Bermuda, the Bahamas, Fiji, Mexico, Panama and Puerto Rico, for permission to collect scleractinian coral samples. Special thanks to S. Arnold, J. Azueta, C. Bastidas, M.A. Coffroth, J. Craig, A. Cróquer, M. del Carmen García, E. García, J. Gibson, C. Gutiérrez-Rodríguez, H. Guzmán, R.M. Loretto, M.I. Millet, D.G. Muñoz, C. Salazar, P. Sale, T. Snell, R. Steneck, A. Szmant, E. Weil and the people of Ba, Macuata, Nadroga, and Rewa provinces in Fiji for various contributions to this work. This research was supported by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Undersea Research Program (2000-15 and 2002-12), the National Science Foundation (OCE-95-30057 and OCE-99-07319), the National Coral Reef Institute, International Cooperative Biodiversity Group grant R21 TW006662-01 from the Fogarty International Center at the National Institutes of Health and the World Bank-Global Environment Fund Coral Reef Targeted Research program.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Biology, Georgia Institute of Technology, 310 Ferst Dr., Atlanta, GA, 30332-0230, USA

    T. L. Shearer

  2. Depto. Ciencias Biológicas, Universidad de los Andes, Carrera 1Nº 18A 10, Bogotá, Colombia

    I. Porto

  3. Depto. Biología de Organismos, Universidad Simón Bolívar, Apartado 1080-A, Caracas, Venezuela

    A. L. Zubillaga

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  1. T. L. Shearer
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  2. I. Porto
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Correspondence to T. L. Shearer.

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Shearer, T.L., Porto, I. & Zubillaga, A.L. Restoration of coral populations in light of genetic diversity estimates. Coral Reefs 28, 727–733 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00338-009-0520-x

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