![]() In the context of the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, the goal is to prevent, halt and reverse the degradation of ecosystems worldwide. The prolonged worldwide decline of coral reefs ( Hughes et al., 2018) requires the combination of traditional conservation with active restoration to support ecosystem recovery ( Rinkevich, 2015). We conclude that science-based boutique coral reef restoration, tailored to the needs of a hotel resort, combined with a simple monitoring method, can provide a framework for involving hotels as partners in coral reef restoration worldwide. However, the ability to monitor such a control site, in addition to the restoration site, was beyond the logistic capabilities of the hotel staff, and we were limited to monitoring survival and growth within the restoration site. A comprehensive approach to the boutique restoration monitoring experiment would have included comparisons with a control patch reef with a similar species composition to the coral transplants. ![]() Branching coral survivors grew faster than massive/encrusting corals. The change in colony size was 10.1 cm 2 ± 8.8 (SE). Survival of encrusting and massive corals was higher (50%–100%) than branching corals (16.6%–83.3%). The monitoring method was robust enough to detect the expected survival of coral transplants, with encrusting and massive corals outperforming branching corals. We measured the two-dimensional coral planar area and the change in colony size over time using contour tissue measurements of photographs. Using the map, and the reflective tiles, the divers located the coral colonies, recorded status (alive, dead, bleaching), and took a photograph. Then, we developed a simple monitoring protocol for hotel staff. We drafted a map of the site to facilitate navigation and re-sighting of the monitored colonies. Every coral was recorded with top view photography (perpendicular to the plane of coral attachment), with the reflective square in the field of view. We used reflective tiles instead of numbered tags due to the expected amount of biofouling growing on the tag surface. ![]() On the north side of each coral selected for monitoring, we attached an 8.2 cm × 8.2 cm reflective tile. A unique cement mix was used to transplant corals onto the hard substrate. A total of 2,015 nursery-grown corals of branching (four genera, 15 species), massive (16 genera, 23 species), and encrusting (seven genera, seven species) growth types were transplanted to a 1–3 m deep degraded patch reef. ![]() The restoration was tailored to the needs of a hotel resort in Seychelles, Indian Ocean. Survival and growth of coral transplants were evaluated over 1 year at a boutique coral reef restoration site. Here, we present a monitoring method of easy application by hotel staff, without scientific training, using the standard resources available at a hotel resort. However, the scarcity of user-friendly monitoring methods for hotel staff, but robust enough to detect changes over time, hinders the ability to quantify the success or failure of the restoration activity. Such involvement of private businesses offers the potential to expand restoration into a new socioeconomic sector. PeerJ 11: e15062 Ĭoral reef restoration projects are becoming a popular corporate environmental responsibility activity at hotel resorts. A low-tech method for monitoring survival and growth of coral transplants at a boutique restoration site. Cite this article Frias-Torres S, Reveret C, Henri K, Shah N, Montoya Maya PH. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited. Licence This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. 4 Corales de Paz, Santiago de Cali, Colombia DOI 10.7717/peerj.15062 Published Accepted Received Academic Editor James Reimer Subject Areas Conservation Biology, Ecology, Marine Biology, Zoology, Natural Resource Management Keywords Coral gardening, Coral transplants, Indian Ocean, Seychelles, Restoration Copyright © 2023 Frias-Torres et al.
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