Are coral restoration sites doomed? Thermal stress episodes, turbidity, and depth as criteria for the assessment of the suitability of current coral restoration sites

• Grant number: 24/00288-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: October 01, 2024
• End date: September 30, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Physical Sciences and Mathematics - Oceanography - Biological Oceanography
• Principal Investigator: Miguel Mies
• Grantee: Michelle Amario
• Host Institution: Instituto Oceanográfico (IO). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Over the past decades coral reef systems have been suffering from anthropogenic climateinducedenvironmental changes. As a result of increasing sea water surface temperatureand accumulated heat stress, coral bleaching events have become more frequent, severe,and widely distributed, leading to a decline in coral cover and reef health. To reverse thisdecline, and increase coral cover and population size, active restoration practices, basedon the collection, transplantation, and re-attachment of coral colonies, started to arise.However, this method still faces several challenges related to scale, costs, reef diversityand its outcomes. Considering that coral reefs thrive in very specific environmentalconditions, choosing the appropriate location for restoration is one of the most importantfactors for success. Currently, there is a gap of information evaluating the suitability ofreef restoration sites, considering its abiotic characteristics and their historical occurrenceof thermal anomalies, especially incidence of thermal stress episodes. This proposal aims toinvestigate whether a restoration site is suitable for the practice regarding temperaturevariations, incidence thermal stress episodes, light incidence, and local depth. We willobtain the respective data of sea surface temperature and turbidity from remote sensingtechnologies. By conducting a literature review we will gather the information about localdepth of each site. We believe that we will find a mismatch between the suitability ofrestoration sites and their locations. The results of this study are of great importance forthe scientific community, government officials, conservation initiatives, managementpolicies and general audience. Therefore, our findings should generate one scientificarticle in a high-impact journal and one special issue report on a general news media.