Page 358 - Hawaii: Diving, Surfing, Pearl Harbor, Volcanoes and More

The coral seems to want to repair itself quickly and grow the ideal length of time needed to acclimate each species
back over its lost ground before something else takes its to make them less attractive to hungry fish. If success-
territory. But it wasn’t until Mr. Page was hired in 2011 ful, they plan to use their nursery-raised corals to restore
that Dr. Vaughan first applied this insight to the large- other degraded reef sites throughout the Keys and train
scale production of massive corals. others to set up their own coral factories. And while other
scientists have been enthusiastic about the project, such
Mr. Page raised corals in an aquarium as a teenager in as Bill Causey, a coral expert who oversees all federal ma-
Buffalo. He knew that hobbyists and live-coral deal- rine sanctuaries in the Southeastern United States, the
ers routinely split growing colonies into pieces to sell Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean for the National Oce-
or trade. “This was something that could be done,” he anic and Atmospheric Administration, who commented
said. “I had done it as a hobbyist. It was a chance to ap- stating that “this is easily the most promising restoration
ply what I had done on a much larger scale and actually project that I am aware of,” he also added that “Dave and
accomplish something big.” Three years later, he said, he Chris are buying us time,” he added. “This will keep cor-
can produce 1,000 microfragments just one centimeter als out there” until “we can come to understand what is
square (one-sixth of a square inch) in four days. And with happening to coral on the larger scale.”
more space and adequate funding, he added, “the sky’s
the limit.” More than a year after they were transplanted OTHER KEY PROJECTS
to offshore test sites, 134 of 150 colonies grown from mi-
crofragments continue to flourish, Mr. Page said. Dr. Vaughan’s team has not stopped at using microfrag-
menting to repopulate damaged reefs. The Summerland
Mote scientists won federal approval to begin their most Key team is also running water temperature simulations
ambitious project yet — to create a living coral thicket on of expected water temperatures 20 years and 50 years
the limestone skeleton of a dead reef half a mile off Big from now to see which coral species can withstand the
Pine Key, just east of Key West. They have started plant- higher expected temperatures. This is a tricky analysis
ing 4,000 nursery-raised corals — symmetrical brain, because it involves not only the coral but also the zoox-
boulder star, great star and massive starlet — on the anthellae that live within the coral tissue and provide the
2.5-acre test site. Those species will join more than 1,000 color and energy for the living coral.
staghorn coral raised in Mote’s offshore nursery by a team
led by another staff scientist, Erich Bartels. The goal, Dr. Understanding and identifying which species have the
Vaughan said, is to create “in a very short period of time a best potential to tolerate expected higher water tempera-
reef like the reefs we remember” from decades ago. tures is where the coral growth and restoration efforts
should focus.
The project, among the largest coral restorations ever at-
tempted, is the first large-scale effort in the Keys, and one The growth of coral in test tanks could also identify a
of the few in the world, to restore massive corals in the strand within a family of coral that has a set of genes
wild, Dr. Vaughan said. It is partly supported by a $35,000 for both the coral and zooxanthellae that can tolerate el-
grant from the Field Museum of Natural History in Chi- evated water temperatures.
cago. Planting will continue indefinitely. The researchers
want to identify the corals that fare best, and to determine