Coral Reef Restoration Effects

Restoration Project CoPIs: Stacey Williams, Ernesto Weil, Travis Courtney, Juan J Cruz Motta, Héctor Ruiz Torres, Chelsea Harms-Tuohy, Evan Tuohy, Rene Esteves-Amador, Pedro Rodríguez, María Vega Rodríguez, Nilda Jimenez, Ricardo Colón Rivera, Michael Nemeth

Funded by National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration

We are part of a large-scale multi-institutional coral reef restoration project led by the non-profit Institute for Socio-Ecological Research funded by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration Office of Habitat Conservation. We are monitoring the restored coral reef benthic communities and comparing them to nearby reference sites to quantify the effects of coral reef restoration on overall coral cover and whether this restoration has the capacity to reverse long-term declines in coral reef reef growth as part of PhD student Townsend’s dissertation.