Coral restoration can drive rapid reef carbonate budget recovery

Ines D Lange; Tries B Razak; Chris T Perry; Permas B Maulana; Mochyudho E Prasetya; Irwan; Timothy Ac Lamont

doi:10.1016/j.cub.2024.02.009

Coral restoration can drive rapid reef carbonate budget recovery

Curr Biol. 2024 Mar 25;34(6):1341-1348.e3. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2024.02.009. Epub 2024 Mar 8.

Authors

Ines D Lange¹, Tries B Razak², Chris T Perry³, Permas B Maulana⁴, Mochyudho E Prasetya⁴, Irwan⁴, Timothy Ac Lamont⁵

Affiliations

¹ Faculty of Environment, Science and Economy, University of Exeter, Exeter EX4 4RJ, UK. Electronic address: i.lange@exeter.ac.uk.
² Research Centre for Oceanography, National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), Jakarta Pusat 10340, Indonesia; School of Coral Reef Restoration (SCORES), Faculty of Fisheries and Marine Science, IPB University, Bogor 16680, Indonesia.
³ Faculty of Environment, Science and Economy, University of Exeter, Exeter EX4 4RJ, UK.
⁴ Mars Sustainable Solutions, Makassar 90224, Indonesia.
⁵ Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YW, UK.

PMID: 38460511
DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2024.02.009

Abstract

Restoration is increasingly seen as a necessary tool to reverse ecological decline across terrestrial and marine ecosystems.¹^,² Considering the unprecedented loss of coral cover and associated reef ecosystem services, active coral restoration is gaining traction in local management strategies and has recently seen major increases in scale. However, the extent to which coral restoration may restore key reef functions is poorly understood.³^,⁴ Carbonate budgets, defined as the balance between calcium carbonate production and erosion, influence a reef's ability to provide important geo-ecological functions including structural complexity, reef framework production, and vertical accretion.⁵ Here we present the first assessment of reef carbonate budget trajectories at restoration sites. The study was conducted at one of the world's largest coral restoration programs, which transplants healthy coral fragments onto hexagonal metal frames to consolidate degraded rubble fields.⁶ Within 4 years, fast coral growth supports a rapid recovery of coral cover (from 17% ± 2% to 56% ± 4%), substrate rugosity (from 1.3 ± 0.1 to 1.7 ± 0.1) and carbonate production (from 7.2 ± 1.6 to 20.7 ± 2.2 kg m^-2 yr^-1). Four years after coral transplantation, net carbonate budgets have tripled and are indistinguishable from healthy control sites (19.1 ± 3.1 and 18.7 ± 2.2 kg m^-2 yr^-1, respectively). However, taxa-level contributions to carbonate production differ between restored and healthy reefs due to the preferential use of branching corals for transplantation. While longer observation times are necessary to observe any self-organization ability of restored reefs (natural recruitment, resilience to thermal stress), we demonstrate the potential of large-scale, well-managed coral restoration projects to recover important ecosystem functions within only 4 years.

Keywords: Indonesia; ReefBudget; carbonate budgets; coastal protection; coral reef; coral restoration; ecosystem function; recovery.

MeSH terms

Animals
Anthozoa* / metabolism
Calcium Carbonate
Carbonates / metabolism
Coral Reefs
Ecosystem

Substances

Carbonates
Calcium Carbonate