Description

Insights on the impacts of coral restoration: How planting corals affects the entire ecosystem

Dr Gretchen Goodbody-Gringley, CCMI Director of Research and Education

This year marks a decade of restoration research at CCMI, and during this time, the organisation made significant strides toward improving methods for rearing corals in the nursery as well as improving survival after planting corals back onto the reef. With recent success from our coral-dome project showing significant increase in long-term survival of out planted corals (from 8% to 70%), the work has given important insights to site selection and out-planting strategies.

Recently, CCMI investigated how our out-planted coral-domes affected the resident fish populations. Nearly two years after creating a series of coral-dome sites, they found an increase in fish density and diversity over time at reefs where corals were planted, suggesting that not only does restoration impact corals, but potentially the entire ecosystem. These findings provide support for our continued efforts to restore populations of these threatened coral species, as it will have far reaching impacts towards improving reef health.

Registration: https://donate.reefresearch.org/restoration2022