Coral Restoration

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Coral Reef RestorationThe Lirman lab has been conducting active coral propagation and reef restoration in Florida and the Caribbean for > 10 years. The focus of our activities is to propagate stocks of threatened corals like Acropora cervicornis and A. palmata within in water and ex situ nurseries and outplant nursery-grown corals onto degraded reefs. To date, we have planted > 25,000 corals in Florida and the Caribbean, recovering denuded coral populations and restoring the ecological services lost to reef degradation. Our restoration activities support diverse research projects aimed at developing science-based Best Practices for restoration, understanding patterns of genetic and genomic diversity within restored populations, and factors influencing coral growth and survivorship in the face of local and regional stressors as well as Climate Change factors.


Benthic

Publications

Drury CSchopmeyer SGoergen E, et al. Genomic patterns in Acropora cervicornis show extensive population structure and variable genetic diversityEcol Evol. (2017) 7:61886200https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.3184

Drury, C, D. Manzello, and D. Lirman. 2017. Genotype and local environment dynamically influence growth, disturbance response and survivorship in the threatened coral Acropora cervicornis. PloS ONE, doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0174000.

Schopmeyer, S.A., Lirman, D., Bartels, E. et al. Coral Reefs (2017) 36:1047. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00338-017-1596-3

Lirman, D. and S. Schopmeyer. 2016. Ecological solutions to reef degradation: optimizing coral restoration in the Caribbean and Western Atlantic. PeerJ 4:e2597, DOI 10.7717/peerj.2597.