Coral of Opportunity Survivorship and the Use of Coral Nurseries in Coral Reef Restoration

Coral reef damage is unfortunately becoming a common occurrence off southeast Florida, U.S.A. Reattachment of the dislodged scleractinian corals usually initiates damage site restoration. Because mortality of dislodged colonies is typically high and natural recovery in southeast Florida is typically slow, transplantation of additional scleractinian corals into a damaged area has been used to accelerate reef recovery. Donor colonies available for transplantation have been grown in situ, grown in laboratories, and taken from nondamaged reef areas. An alternative source of donor colonies for transplantation into damaged sites is “corals of opportunity,” which we define as scleractinian corals that have been detached from the reef through natural processes or unknown events. This paper describes a project, initiated in 2001 in Broward County, Florida, that was developed to collect these dislodged colonies and transplant them to a coral nursery. Coral nurseries are interim locations that function as storage sites for corals of opportunity where they can be cached, stabilized, and allowed to grow, until needed as donor colonies for future restoration activities. This project is a partnership between a local university, county government, and a volunteer dive group. Two hundred and fifty corals of opportunity were collected, transplanted to the coral nurseries, and monitored for survival. Transplanted colony survival was similar to that of naturally attached control colonies and significantly greater than that of corals of opportunity left unattached. Results provide resource managers with information on the utility of using corals of opportunity as a source of transplant donor colonies, and the value of using coral nurseries to create a reserve of corals of opportunity for use in future coral reef restoration activities

Does the Repressor Coping Style Predict Lower Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms?

We tested whether a continuous measure of repressor coping style predicted lower posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms in 122 health care professionals serving in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Zero-order correlational analyses indicated that predeployment repressor coping scores negatively predicted postdeployment PTSD symptoms, $r_s = -0.29, p = 0.001$, whereas predeployment Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC) scores did not predict postdeployment PTSD symptoms, $r_s = -0.13, p = 0.14$. However, predeployment trait anxiety was chiefly responsible for the association between repressor coping and PTSD symptom severity, $r_s = 0.38, p = 0.001$. Four percent of the subjects qualified for a probable PTSD diagnosis. Although service members with relatively higher PTSD scores had lower repressor coping scores than did the other subjects, their level of predeployment anxiety was chiefly responsible for this relationship. Knowing someone's predeployment level of trait anxiety permits better prediction of PTSD symptoms among trauma-exposed service members than does knowing his or her level of repressive coping.Psycholog

Overlapping but disparate inflammatory and immunosuppressive responses to SARS-CoV-2 and bacterial sepsis: An immunological time course analysis

Both severe SARS-CoV-2 infections and bacterial sepsis exhibit an immunological dyscrasia and propensity for secondary infections. The nature of the immunological dyscrasias for these differing etiologies and their time course remain unclear. In this study, thirty hospitalized patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection were compared with ten critically ill patients with bacterial sepsis over 21 days, as well as ten healthy control subjects. Blood was sampled between days 1 and 21 after admission for targeted plasma biomarker analysis, cellular phenotyping, and leukocyte functional analysi

Coral Reef Ecosystem Restoration Off Southeast Florida

Significant coral reef community development along the eastern shelf of the United States continues northward of the Florida Keys through Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, and Martin Counties, Florida (to Latitude 27° N). These Southeast Florida high-latitude coral communities have approximately 30 species of stony corals, stony coral coverage of 2-3%, and a diverse assemblage of reef gorgonians, sponges, and fishes. This system lays within 3 km of the coast offshore a highly urbanized area comprising a population of over 5 million people (the population of Broward County alone exceeds 1.7 million). These reefs are important economic assets: a 2001 economic assessment estimated the annual reef input for Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach Counties at 5.8 billion dollars. Potential impacts to the system include those from commercial and recreational fishing and diving, sewer outfalls, marine construction activities (fiber optic cables, channel dredging, gas pipe lines), and major shipping ports and ship groundings. Southeast Florida has three major shipping ports; Port of West Palm Beach, Port Everglades (Broward County), and the Port of Miami. At Port Everglades alone, over 5,300 ships call on an annual basis. This heavy ship traffic very near and within a coral reef system has resulted in nearly one ship grounding per year offshore Broward County since the early 1990’s. Nearly all reef damage events involve some level of injury assessment, triage and restoration, and monitoring. Triage generally involves the uprighting and caching of dislodged and fragmented stony coral colonies. At a minimum, restoration activities include the reattachment of these stony coral colonies. Restoration may also include the reattachment of dislodged octocorals and sponges and the removal of rubble generated by the damage event. This work summarizes restoration activities and monitoring results from several representative reef damage events that have occurred offshore Broward County, Florida. Discussion will include the effectiveness of past and current restoration and monitoring activities. Recommendations for improved restoration activities and more effective recovery monitoring will also be discussed

Techniques for Restoring Gorgonians to Coral Reef Injury Areas

Great attention and energy has been spent investigating reattachment techniques for dislodged and fragmented scleractinian corals; however there has been a lack of controlled experimentation on how to restore dislodged gorgonians following a disturbance event, such as a ship grounding. Unfortunately, reef damage events occur frequently off southeast Florida. As an example, since 1998 at least five freighters have grounded on the reefs near Ft. Lauderdale, Broward County. These freighters dislodged many scleractinian and gorgonian corals and often destroyed thousands of square feet of reef habitat. After these events, restoration efforts concentrated on stabilizing loose debris and rubble, and reattaching scleractinian coral fragments and dislodged colonies. Although southeast Florida’s reefs are dominated by gorgonian corals, which are also sheared from the reef when ships ground, restoration efforts generally do not place much emphasis on reattaching dislodged gorgonian colonies. In order to determine effective techniques for restoring gorgonian populations, 94 gorgonian clippings were transplanted to a reef area in Broward County, Florida in June 2004. The 15-cm clippings were cut from naturally occurring loose colonies of Pseudopterogorgia americana, Plexaura flexuosa and Muricea muricata, common gorgonians in the southeast Florida reef system. Half of these clippings were attached to the reef substrate using Portland II cement; the other half were transplanted to the reef with two-part marine epoxy. These clippings will be monitored quarterly for a minimum of one year to measure growth and health, and whether the colonies form attachments to the reef over the cement or epoxy. Clipping growth data will be compared to control, 15-20 cm naturally attached, colonies of the same species to determine whether transplant growth is similar to naturally occurring small gorgonian colonies. Data will also be collected on loose control colonies, which are tethered to small pins in the substrate. These controls will indicate whether dislodged colonies left loose on the reef will die, or whether they will reattach and continue to grow. The goal of this study is to determine effective techniques to restore gorgonian populations. This study aims to create a protocol that resource managers and scientists may follow when determining the most effective way to restore gorgonians to reef habitats following events such as ship groundings. This protocol will take into consideration the condition of each gorgonian colony and the resources available (equipment, money, and time) for restoration