This effort has resulted in the successful implementation since 2003 of the Community-Based Coral Aquaculture and Reef Rehabilitation Program led by Sociedad Ambiente Marino and the Coral Reef Research Group of the University of Puerto Rico’s Center for Applied Tropical Ecology and Conservation ,with the direct collaboration of NGO Coralations and the Culebra Island Fishers Association. The program has successfully propagated and reintroduced over 15,000 A. cervicornis colonies around Culebra since 2003. The general goals of the program include the aim to restore A. cervicornis depleted populations and to rehabilitate coral reef ecosystem functions by fostering increased fish and coral recruitment, and increased herb ivory levels.These processes are critical for the sustainability of coral reef ecosystem functions and resilience under forecasted climate change scenarios . Forecasted trends of change based on climate modeling suggest major threats due to increasing SST and increased risk of massive coral bleaching events . These could have potentially devastating consequences for selected reef-building species and for marine ecosystems.
Global-scale climate change impacts may also threaten the success of coral aquaculture and coral reef rehabilitation activities due to extreme weather events leaving base-communities nearly defenseless against factors such as declining reef accretion in face of increasing sea level rise , ocean acidification, grow table net loss of ecosystem resilience and productivity, and declining socioeconomic value, services and benefits . Such impacts can be more critical for small island-nations with limited geographic, socio-economic, and human resources,particularly under non-sustainable economic models . Nonetheless, studies addressing the impacts of climate-related factors such as increasing SST, increased tropical storm or hurricane frequency, or extreme rainfall events are missing. We postulate that a chronic increase in SST may increase the frequency and/or severity of extreme rainfall events and hurricanes. In turn, this should result in an increased frequency and/or severity of impacts from sediment-laden runoff pulses and LBSP to coral reefs and to community-based coral farming efforts. This suggests the need to test low-tech adaptive strategies to minimize such impacts and maximize coral growth and survival. Further, the role of no-take marine protected areas as potential buffers of multiple anthropogenic disturbance impacts to coral reefs, including climate change, still remains controversial .We suggest that even a no-take MPA designation is not enough to ameliorate impacts from climate change and extreme weather events.
Their potential benefit could be further diminished by LBSP. There are still no published accounts comparing outputs of coral farming within and outside no-take MPAs.This study was aimed at addressing the impacts of high SST, hurricanes, and extreme rainfall events on community-based low-tech A. cervicornis farming in Culebra Island, Puerto Rico. We tested two different methods to propagate corals as an adaptive strategy to mitigate impacts by hurricanes, extreme rainfall and sediment-laden runoff pulses . Finally, results were compared between coral farming sites located within a notake MPA and control sites outside open to fishing. For our purpose, ebb flow table extreme rainfall was defined as heavy rainfall in a short period of time . There were six events recorded in a local rain gauge during May 2011 , five during June ,four during July , and two during August associated to tropical storm Emily and Hurricane Irene . These also produced 2 m, and 4 – 5 m swells, respectively.Based on rain gauge data, summer extreme events in 2011 represented rainfall anomalies of 127%, 140%, and 152% in relation to mean monthly values in May, June, and August, respectively . However, Doppler data suggested extreme rainfall events that resulted in rainfall records 319% above mean May value, 521% in June, 246% in July, 168% in August, and 165% in September. All of these events resulted in coral mortality episode sin both wild and cultured A. cervicornis populations as a result of rapid shut-down reaction and tissue loss following heavy rainfall and sediment-laden run off.The northeastern Caribbean Region was also impacted during 2012 and 2013 by several significant rainfall events, as well as by recurrent long-period bottom swells.