Abstract
A primary objective of coral restoration is to foster the development of large, sexually reproductive colonies to reseed degraded reefs. Practitioners of Acropora cervicornis restoration favor outplanting large individuals spaced more than 50 cm apart; however, this contrasts with this species’ tendency to form high-density thickets with multiple colonies and genotypes in close proximity. Furthermore, large outplants are difficult to grow and transport, limiting scalability. We outplanted dense clusters containing multiple small, monoclonal fragments spaced 1–2 cm apart and compared their performance with that of large fragments of the same genotype planted individually. We further investigated the effect of clonal diversity by combining multiple genotypes within clusters. Dense clusters had equivalent growth and higher survivorship than large individuals and were not hindered by genotypic diversity. Our findings support outplanting dense, polyclonal clusters as a method to cultivate large, resilient A. cervicornis colonies.
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Data availability
The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank A. Baker, P. Kiel, D. Gilliam, and E. Esplandiu for their contributions. This research was funded by Mote Marine Lab’s Protect Our Reefs program, NOAA’s Restoration Center (award OAA-NMFS-HCPO-2016-2004840), and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. The views and conclusions of this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the opinions or policies of the US Government or the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and its funding sources.
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JU, DH, and DL contributed to the study conception and design. All authors contributed to the experiment setup and monitoring. Data analysis and visualization were conducted by JU. The first draft of the manuscript was written by JU, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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All corals were collected, propagated, and outplanted under a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission Special Activity License (SAL-19-1794-SCRP).
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Unsworth, J.D., Hesley, D., D’Alessandro, M. et al. Dense clusters improve efficiency and foster colony development in restored Acropora cervicornis. Coral Reefs 42, 337–341 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00338-022-02342-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00338-022-02342-8