Mote awarded nearly $7 million for coral reef restoration

Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium was recently awarded nearly $7 million from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. 

The grant will cover a four-year, multi-faceted project focused on implementing a holistically transformative coral reef restoration initiative at 10 reef sites along Florida’s Coral Reef, just offshore of the Florida Keys Archipelago, according to a news release from Mote. 

The initiative, which will be led by Mote’s Coral Reef Restoration Research Program Manager Jason Spadaro, is seeking to expand the laboratory’s capacity to continue making strides toward restoring coral reef habitats. 

“Coral reef restoration is still essentially in its infancy, but we believe that this project and the ambitious objectives we have set, represent a science-based and scalable pathway to transformative and, more importantly, lasting landscape scale function restoration of the most biodiversity and socio-economically valuable habitat and natural resource in Florida,” Spadaro said in the release.

Living coral cover, the proportion of the reef covered in living coral, on Florida’s Coral Reef is currently between 1% and 5%. The number is dramatically less than about 40 years ago when coverage was more than 30%. 

“Over the last decade, Mote has been a leader in changing the paradigm for coral restoration science in Florida and around the world,” Michael Crosby, Mote’s President and CEO said in the release. “With this new NOAA grant, we will build on our history of innovative science and success in restoring over 200,000 corals to date by launching a transformational initiative focused on coral reef community restoration.”

With the $7 million Transformational Habitat Restoration and Coastal Resilience Award, Mote has committed to begin the coral reef restoration efforts immediately at 10 coral reef sites throughout the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. 

Mote scientists have set four major objectives that include: 

• Commence or expand restoration efforts at all 10 reef sites: This effort’s plans include the production and outplanting of 242,000 coral fragments and 34,000 Caribbean king crabs over the four-year period. 
• Scale Mote’s restoration efforts and effect by iteratively increasing cost efficiency in production and outplanting operations: This includes developing and using new science-based methods, materials and workflows to inform, guide and enhance efforts. 
• Increase production and implementation of Caribbean king crabs to facilitate restoration success: The crabs are large native reef herbivores, but are currently not present in high enough numbers to keep algae in the reefs under control. 
• Apply science-based methods to ensure a genetically diverse and resilient restored coral reef community: Mote scientists will apply components of their workflow to guide production of corals that have demonstrated resilience to known stressors such as disease and climate change.