Researchers raise threatened staghorn and elkhorn corals at a nursery in the warm Caribbean waters off the southern coast of Puerto Rico.
Known as a line nursery, workers affix small pieces of coral to rubber-coated wires suspended above the seafloor, a technique that has proved very successful.
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Researchers start with staghorn coral fragments just 1.5 inches long (4 cm).
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After about a year, once the corals are grown, they are transferred to sites where the corals have suffered damage in the past. Staghorn corals were "out-planted"…Read More »
to this site in 2008, and the species is now thriving at the reef. Less «
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New coral neighbors
This reef had healthy soft corals but no staghorn corals, a key reef-building species. Teams placed isolated staghorn colonies raised at the nursery at…Read More »
the reef about three years ago, and the species is now thriving. Less «
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In January 2012, teams undertook the largest "transplanting" project in the region to date, moving more than 1,200 staghorn corals from the nursery to…Read More »
sites in need of the species around the area. In this photo, newly-planted staghorns stand out on a reef that is lacking healthy, reef-building corals. Less «
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