Coral Restoration And Climate Change

Our group has been sampling corals and performing disease transmission experiments to understand how susceptibility varies by species and how transmission dynamics are affected by different water quality parameters, including thermal stress.  While most water quality monitoring programs sample only at the ocean’s surface, we have been working to quantify water quality dynamics at the level of the corals. We compare these results with coral population dynamics and patterns of microbes in order to determine how water quality influences the health of corals. Our group has found that different species have different tolerances to changes in the environment, and this can affect their disease resistance. Because different coral reefs are comprised of different abundances of species, we are now testing how disease spread across a region is affected by the species composition of the different reefs that make up that region.

Losses due to disease and other stressors have led many Caribbean islands to turn to coral restoration. These restoration activities have often focused on fast growing branching corals. But these corals were severely impacted by Hurricanes Irma and Maria, which affected the territory in 2017. Research is needed to diversify strategies for coral reef restoration. 

A coral’s resistance to disease and a restored coral’s likelihood of survival can both be affected by the environment. Stressors originating from local human activities like pollution and temperature extremes due to climate change can weaken corals, making them less able to resist infection or less likely to grow and survive after being restored to a reef.  Identifying what environmental factors are important in disease susceptibility and coral restoration success can help us to identify important areas for management and restoration. 

Research Goals

The Marine Disease and Restoration research area of VI EPSCoR will test how different environmental and species-specific factors affect a coral’s susceptibility to disease and its likelihood of success after being restored. This research will help us to understand how different types of corals may be better targets for restoration and also how non-coral species like urchins which control seaweeds or sponges which filter water may prevent disease infection and/or positively benefit restored corals. 

This research aligns with two important initiatives in the US Virgin Islands:

1) A multi-agency initiative to track and control Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD) led by the Virgin Islands Coral Disease Advisory Committee (VI-CDAC), and

2) Reef Response, an initiative by the University of the Virgin Islands and VI EPSCoR to restore coral in the northern Virgin Islands using science-based strategies and involving citizen scientists.