Page 356 - Hawaii: Diving, Surfing, Pearl Harbor, Volcanoes and More

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
in neat rows on different surfaces: cement pucks, specially
Dr. Vaughan and a staff biologist, Christopher Page, say manufactured ceramic wafers, or travertine tiles from the
this quick-grow technique, called microfragmenting, may local Home Depot. Each had grown from a microfragment
make it possible to mass-produce reef-building corals for about the size of a pencil eraser.
transplanting onto dead or dying reefs that took centuries
to develop — perhaps slowing or even reversing the alarm- Dr. Vaughan stumbled upon the microfragmenting idea
ing loss of corals in the Florida Keys and elsewhere. A eight years ago. He was transferring colonies of elkhorn
quarter of the earth’s corals have disappeared in recent dec- coral between aquariums in his lab. He reached to the
ades, and the Mote scientists say no one can predict what bottom of a tank to retrieve a colony growing on a two-
will happen if the oceans continue to warm, pollution and inch concrete puck. Part of the coral had grown over the
acidification increase, overfishing further decimates spe- back side and had attached to the bottom of the aquarium.
cies beneficial to coral, and land runoff continues to reduce When he grabbed it, “it broke off and left two or three
the amount of life-giving sunlight that reaches the bottom. polyps behind. I thought I just killed those. But oh, well, I
moved the puck over.” A week later he happened to glance
The team at the Mote Research facility on Summerland Key at the abandoned polyps — the individual hydra-shaped,
have focused on “massive” corals, the species that create genetically identical organisms that make up a coral colony
most of the structure on a living reef. These corals have — on the bottom of the aquarium. “I noticed that those
proved less susceptible than other species to the effects of one to three polyps were now five to seven polyps,” he said.
rising ocean temperatures, pollution and changes in wa- “They not only had lived — they had grown and had dou-
ter chemistry. Unlike fast-growing branching corals, mas- bled in size.” It was, he said, “my eureka mistake.” He cut a
sive species like brain, star, boulder and mounding corals few more polyps from the original colony and placed them
naturally grow less than two inches a year — so slowly on other pucks. “And they grew like crazy.
they are nicknamed “living rocks.” Scientists and marine
aquaculturists are successfully growing staghorn and other CLICK HERE FOR THE MOTE
branching corals in offshore nurseries for replanting in the STRATEGIC PLAN
wild. But until now, the slow growth rate of massive corals
has stymied all efforts to produce these species in sufficient