Succesvolle nieuwe methode voor koraalherstel op Bonaire

Bericht uitgegeven door Dutch Caribbean Nature Alliance (DCNA) [land] op [publicatiedatum]

De ontmoeting tussen de Coral Restoration Foundation uit Florida en de manager van een duik oord op Bonaire leidde tot een succesvol koraalherstelprogramma. Gedurende tien jaar onderzoek ontwikkelde de Coral Restoration Foundation een methode om nieuw koraal te kweken door het te laten groeien op een ding dat doet denken aan een oude televisieantenne. Vorig jaar is deze koraalkweekmethode ook op Bonaire geïntroduceerd met twee demonstratiekwekerijen bij het duik oord en een meer beschermde voor de kust van Klein Bonaire, een klein onbewoond eilandje voor de kust van Bonaire. Bijna alle uitgezette koraalfragmenten overleven op Bonaire en ze groeien en vertakken zich goed: tot bijna drie keer hun grootte in negen maanden. Deze groeisnelheid behoort tot de snelste die de Coral Restoration Foundation ooit gezien heeft. Bovendien verwacht de stichting binnen twee jaar de eerste natuurlijke voortplanting.

Lees verder in het Engels.......

A meeting between Ken Nedimyer of the Coral Restoration Foundation in Florida and Augusto Montbrun, the manager of a commercial dive resort on Bonaire in 2009 resulted in an unusual partnership. The progress made by the Coral Restoration Foundation with coral restoration using farmed fragments of Acroporid corals in the Florida Keys fuelled Montbrun’s desire to bring this successful project to Bonaire.

After almost ten years of trial and error, the Coral Restoration Foundation developed a model called the “nursery tree”, reminiscent of an old-school TV antenna, from which small fragments of native Staghorn and Elkhorn coral colonies are suspended in the water column, making the whole system resemble an underwater Christmas tree. The coral fragments are harvested from remaining Acropora colonies in the waters around Bonaire. The “nursery tree” has a success rate of over 99% in the growing of healthy coral. This means that nearly all farmed coral fragments hanging in the nursery tree grow to be large enough to be planted out on the reef again.

In April 2012 the first coral nurseries were set up on Bonaire, with two ‘demonstration’ nurseries directly in front of the Buddy Dive resort and a more protected nursery off the coast of Klein Bonaire. The small pieces of coral colonies used are of varying DNA strains from different places around the island to ensure the preservation of diversity and boost spawning rates. The newly pruned coral fragments have seen an almost 100% survival rate and what started as pieces of coral just a few centimetres long, grew and branched out to almost three times their size in just nine months. The rate of growth on Bonaire is among the fastest the Foundation has seen in the world and they expect to see natural spawning within two years among the newly grown coral. Additionally, the remaining, healthy looking colonies, which are believed to contain the most heat and disease resistant DNA strains are being identified and mixed with the apparently less resistant strains in order to preserve diversity on the island.

With the successful first year of the project completed, Buddy Dive along with the Coral Restoration Foundation and STINAPA Bonaire now plan to triple the size of the existing nurseries and begin the reintroduction process on shallow reefs along Bonaire’s coastline by planting out the farmed coral fragments back into the wild. These efforts lend a helping hand to the coral species that might otherwise be condemned to extinction and may provide the snorkelers and divers on Bonaire with an underwater experience that includes these beautiful branching stony corals teeming with juvenile fishes for generations to come.

Text: March Celestine Storm
Pictures: Buddy Dive, Coral Restoration Bonaire
Bron: BioNews May 2013 edition, DCNA
Nederlandse inleiding: Sara Mulder, De Natuurkalender