Meeting Abstract
The severe loss of coral cover over the past 30 years has increased reef restoration efforts and many have turned to transplanting coral fragments. However, not all transplants are equally successful and the ecological conditions necessary for transplant resiliency in the face of disturbances are not well understood. To address this lack of knowledge, we combined a long-term reef community census with a study of transplant survival on 15 reefs in the Florida Keys. A total of 276 coral fragments of five species were transplanted and photographed quarterly from June 2013 to June 2018. During this period, two species were exposed to two acute thermal stress events (2014, 2015) and four species endured a category four hurricane (2017). In general, Siderastrea siderea showed higher resiliency to bleaching compared to Porites asteroides, and the amount of competitive fleshy algae best explained individual variance in the propensity for bleaching. Porites asteroides, Siderastrea radians, and Orbicella faveolata had the highest survival after a physical disturbance with more than 50% of transplants surviving. Acropora cervicornis transplants were most susceptible to physical disturbance with only 16% survival. The reef complexity directly surrounding the coral transplant influenced the survival of A. cervicornis and O. faveolata corals, but not P. asteroides or S. radians transplants. Local topography and species composition rather than regional characteristics, such as depth and distance to shore, explained more variation in coral resiliency. These results suggest some species are more resilient to thermal stress while others are more resilient to physical disturbance and local conditions may be the best predictors of transplant success.
