Title: Coast watch
Identifier: coastwatch00uncs_14 (find matches)
Year: 1979 (1970s)
Authors: UNC Sea Grant College Program
Subjects: Marine resources; Oceanography; Coastal zone management; Coastal ecology
Publisher: (Raleigh, N. C. : UNC Sea Grant College Program)
Contributing Library: State Library of North Carolina
Digitizing Sponsor: North Carolina Digital Heritage Center

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\^ TOP: Star coral release thousands of gamete bundles. MIDDLE: This massive spawn of gamete bundles occurred in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. BOTTOM: Margaret Miller and other divers capture the spawn to nuturefor later release. brand new avenues of research," Capo reflects. The researchers will take a cautious approach to releasing both the urchins and the coral larvae into the reef habitat. At first, they will evaluate the types of habitats that allow urchins to escape predation. By late spring, Miller and Szmant will have conducted more exten- sive transplant experiments, stocking urchins in certain experimental sites to see what effect they have on each benthic community. "Hopefully the weather and the corals will cooperate this August, and we will be able to raise and seed the coral larvae in these urchin-enhanced sites, as well as control sites, to see if the juvenile coral survival improves," Miller says. The ultimate measure for success of the project, Szmant, Miller and Capo agree, will come in June 2002 with baby star and elkhorn corals surviving and growing on urchin-enhanced sites in the sanctuary. "If this two-step approach has the beneficial effects in the sanctuary we think it will, it could change the face of Carib- bean reefs in general," Miller says. A welcome celebration No one will be ready to celebrate success more than Billy Causey, superin- tendent of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. Coral colonies grow slowly, building in stages over millennia. Yet, in just a few recent decades, the cumulative effects of natural and human activities have taken their toll on corals around the world. Natural forces such as global warm- ing, El Nino and La Nina are impacting coral beds globally, Causey says. In the sanctuary, he has seen tens of thousands of fish die during what he calls "warm water events" marked by doldrum conditions — no movement, no oxygen. Damaging ocean storms, the loss of sea urchins and serious coral disease outbreaks have been devastating to corals. On top of that, overfishing of coral 10 SUMMER 2001

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