Coral reefs are biodiversity hotspots that provide crucial ecosystem services of food production, coastal protection, and economic stability through tourism. Decades of disturbance from stressors such as climate change, pollution, and disease events have resulted in significant hard coral decline.

To combat this decline, governments and non-governmental organizations are conducting large-scale coral reef restoration efforts throughout the Caribbean. Restoration involves outplanting nursery-grown corals onto natural reefs to supplement wild coral populations.

Measures of restoration success are typically focused at the coral level by measuring rates of coral outplant survival. But, healthy coral reefs are the product of diverse and abundant species assemblages.

Studying how reef-associated species respond to coral restoration efforts will help us measure coral restoration success at the ecosystem level.

That’s where I come in!