Page 286 - The Virgin Islands
P. 286
While at the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution quantities for reef restoration.
(HBOI), Dr. Vaughan founded the Shellfish Culture De-
partment in 1986 and the Aquaculture Division in 1991, The research facility over which Dr. Vaughan presides
and directed both until 2001. Also while at HBOI, he cre- looks more like an oil refinery than a laboratory. A pump
ated the 60 acre Aquaculture Development Park, home to sucks up seawater trapped in the porous limestone 80 feet
the Aquaculture Center for Training, Education and Dem- below ground. The water is first treated in two 1,000-gal-
onstration. Dr. Vaughan also created and was president lon fiberglass tanks to remove traces of ammonia, carbon
of Oceans, Reefs and Aquariums Inc., the world’s largest dioxide and hydrogen sulfide. Then it flows through a
marine reef hatchery. He founded the Shellfish Farmers maze of four-inch PVC pipes and into 30 outdoor 180-gal-
Association and was its Director for 4 years and has been lon fiberglass tanks, called raceways. A fine-mesh canopy
on the Board of Directors of the Florida Aquaculture As- over the tanks shades them from the subtropical sun. More
sociation for 15 years. than 7,000 brain, star, boulder and mounding corals grow
Dr. Vaughan and a staff biologist, Christopher Page, say in neat rows on different surfaces: cement pucks, specially
this quick-grow technique, called microfragmenting, may manufactured ceramic wafers, or travertine tiles from the
make it possible to mass-produce reef-building corals for local Home Depot. Each had grown from a microfragment
transplanting onto dead or dying reefs that took centuries about the size of a pencil eraser.
to develop — perhaps slowing or even reversing the alarm-
ing loss of corals in the Florida Keys and elsewhere. A Dr. Vaughan stumbled upon the microfragmenting idea
quarter of the earth’s corals have disappeared in recent dec- eight years ago. He was transferring colonies of elkhorn
ades, and the Mote scientists say no one can predict what coral between aquariums in his lab. He reached to the
will happen if the oceans continue to warm, pollution and bottom of a tank to retrieve a colony growing on a two-
acidification increase, overfishing further decimates spe- inch concrete puck. Part of the coral had grown over the
cies beneficial to coral, and land runoff continues to reduce back side and had attached to the bottom of the aquarium.
the amount of life-giving sunlight that reaches the bottom. When he grabbed it, “it broke off and left two or three
The team at the Mote Research facility on Summerland Key polyps behind. I thought I just killed those. But oh, well, I
have focused on “massive” corals, the species that create moved the puck over.” A week later he happened to glance
most of the structure on a living reef. These corals have at the abandoned polyps — the individual hydra-shaped,
proved less susceptible than other species to the effects of genetically identical organisms that make up a coral colony
rising ocean temperatures, pollution and changes in wa- — on the bottom of the aquarium. “I noticed that those
ter chemistry. Unlike fast-growing branching corals, mas- one to three polyps were now five to seven polyps,” he said.
sive species like brain, star, boulder and mounding corals “They not only had lived — they had grown and had dou-
naturally grow less than two inches a year — so slowly bled in size.” It was, he said, “my eureka mistake.” He cut a
they are nicknamed “living rocks.” Scientists and marine few more polyps from the original colony and placed them
aquaculturists are successfully growing staghorn and other on other pucks. “And they grew like crazy.
branching corals in offshore nurseries for replanting in the
wild. But until now, the slow growth rate of massive corals CLICK HERE FOR THE MOTE
has stymied all efforts to produce these species in sufficient STRATEGIC PLAN
