Times of the Islands Summer 2024

green pages newsletter of the department of environment & coastal resources
Reef revival
Luckily, there are steps we can take to help the corals.
To restore and build more resilient reefs, coral nurseries
have been established in recent years on reefs around
the world. Small pieces of coral colonies are taken from
a healthy reef and attached to underwater nursery structures,
which provide more ideal conditions for corals to
grow. Once these coral fragments reach a certain size,
they can be returned to the reef in a process called outplanting.
Outplanted fragments then grow into full-size
colonies themselves, providing more habitat for fish and
improving the overall health of the reef.
In 2023, the South Caicos Coral Reef Consortium
(SCCRC) was established as a collaboration among stakeholders—the
School for Field Studies (SFS), Salterra Resort
and Spa, the Turks & Caicos Reef Fund, and The Reef
Institute—with the common goal of supporting South
Caicos reef recovery. To accomplish this goal, SFS has
led the construction and implementation of several coral
nurseries. In the spring of 2023, coral nursery structures
were installed at four sites (at two different depth categories)
around South Caicos, which were selected based
on accessibility and location, bottom type, and available
data. Five different structure types were tested to determine
which was the most cost-effective. A total of 300
fragments of two coral species—elkhorn and staghorn—
were attached to the structures. The five types of nursery
structures include a rope and fishing longline, a PVC tree,
a PVC rope square, a PVC line square, and cement blocks
with PVC pipes.
Beginning in the fall of 2023, SFS students and staff
have regularly conducted maintenance dives to remove
algae from the nursery structures and monitor coral
health. Each coral fragment is photographed to determine
its growth rate and health. SFS students have found that
nursery structure type doesn’t seem to impact growth
rate, but that corals grow faster at the shallow nursery
sites (10 m), possibly
because shallower corals have greater access to sunlight
for photosynthesis.
Once the coral fragments have grown to a viable size,
they will be outplanted onto a nearby reef. During the
fall, SFS students investigated five potential outplanting
sites, each of which was assessed to determine the size
and number of resident fish and the diversity of substrate
for coral to grow on. Shark Alley, one of the five sites,
From top: A partially bleached fragment of staghorn coral hangs from
a nursery structure.
School for Field Studies student Kara Rumage maintains coral fragments
on a PVC tree structure.
KORT ALEXANDER
HEIDI HERTLER
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