Coral, fish and other data to inform staghorn coral recovery in the Caribbean Sea from 2012-04-05 to 2014-07-28 (NCEI Accession 0127933)

This project was funded for two years by CRCP (FY13-14) and built upon one year of pilot work conducted in FY12 funded by NMFS-SEFSC and SERO as an NRC postdoctoral research fellowship (Huntington). The goals of the project were to characterize natural, robust Acropora cervicornis populations in different regions, including various aspects of A.cervicornis condition, function (growth and tissue condition), and resident fish assemblages. To this end, we conducted surveys at sites in four regions (i.e., Dry Tortugas, Southeast Florida, Belize, USVI) designed to span the range of natural A.cervicornis density present each region. In addition, we conducted similar surveys within restored populations of A.cervicornis at two sites in Puerto Rico with high density restored A.cervicornis populations. Lastly, we undertook three hypothesis-driven studies in the Dry Tortugas region only, to investigate the potential for positive feedbacks between the sheltering reef fish community and high density stands of A. cervicornis. A macroalgal bioassay was used to determine the relative bioavailability of nutrients in the water surrounding high density versus low density stands of A. cervicornis. Wild tissue collections of A. cervicornis occurred at these same sites to compare nutrient concentration and zooxanthellae density within colonies. Lastly, a transplant experiment was conducted at these sites to see if higher coral condition could be induced in coral fragments transplanted from a single (sparse) colony into the high density A. cervicornis site compared to the sparse site.