Potential contribution of fish restocking to the recovery of deteriorated coral reefs: an alternative restoration method?
Counteracting the worldwide trend of coral reef degeneration is a major challenge for the scientific community. A crucial management approach to minimizing stress effects on healthy reefs and helping the recovery of disturbed reefs is reef protection. However, the current rapid decline of the world’...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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PeerJ Inc.
2016-02-01
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| Series: | PeerJ |
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| Online Access: | https://peerj.com/articles/1732.pdf |
| _version_ | 1797424235857051648 |
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| author | Uri Obolski Lilach Hadany Avigdor Abelson |
| author_facet | Uri Obolski Lilach Hadany Avigdor Abelson |
| author_sort | Uri Obolski |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Counteracting the worldwide trend of coral reef degeneration is a major challenge for the scientific community. A crucial management approach to minimizing stress effects on healthy reefs and helping the recovery of disturbed reefs is reef protection. However, the current rapid decline of the world’s reefs suggests that protection might be insufficient as a viable stand-alone management approach for some reefs. We thus suggest that the ecological restoration of coral reefs (CRR) should be considered as a valid component of coral reef management, in addition to protection, if the applied method is economically applicable and scalable. This theoretical study examines the potential applicability and outcomes of restocking grazers as a restoration tool for coral reef recovery—a tool that has not been applied so far in reef restoration projects. We studied the effect of restocking grazing fish as a restoration method using a mathematical model of degrading reefs, and analyzed the financial outcomes of the restocking intervention. The results suggest that applying this restoration method, in addition to protection, can facilitate reef recovery. Moreover, our analysis suggests that the restocking approach almost always becomes profitable within several years. Considering the relatively low cost of this restoration approach and the feasibility of mass production of herbivorous fish, we suggest that this approach should be considered and examined as an additional viable restoration tool for coral reefs. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-09T07:59:24Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-2f6fa19b4f024bbd9f45718c4683d4a2 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2167-8359 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-09T07:59:24Z |
| publishDate | 2016-02-01 |
| publisher | PeerJ Inc. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | PeerJ |
| spelling | doaj.art-2f6fa19b4f024bbd9f45718c4683d4a22023-12-03T00:48:14ZengPeerJ Inc.PeerJ2167-83592016-02-014e173210.7717/peerj.1732Potential contribution of fish restocking to the recovery of deteriorated coral reefs: an alternative restoration method?Uri Obolski0Lilach Hadany1Avigdor Abelson2Department of Molecular Biology and Ecology of plants, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, IsraelDepartment of Molecular Biology and Ecology of plants, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, IsraelDepartment of Zoology, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, IsraelCounteracting the worldwide trend of coral reef degeneration is a major challenge for the scientific community. A crucial management approach to minimizing stress effects on healthy reefs and helping the recovery of disturbed reefs is reef protection. However, the current rapid decline of the world’s reefs suggests that protection might be insufficient as a viable stand-alone management approach for some reefs. We thus suggest that the ecological restoration of coral reefs (CRR) should be considered as a valid component of coral reef management, in addition to protection, if the applied method is economically applicable and scalable. This theoretical study examines the potential applicability and outcomes of restocking grazers as a restoration tool for coral reef recovery—a tool that has not been applied so far in reef restoration projects. We studied the effect of restocking grazing fish as a restoration method using a mathematical model of degrading reefs, and analyzed the financial outcomes of the restocking intervention. The results suggest that applying this restoration method, in addition to protection, can facilitate reef recovery. Moreover, our analysis suggests that the restocking approach almost always becomes profitable within several years. Considering the relatively low cost of this restoration approach and the feasibility of mass production of herbivorous fish, we suggest that this approach should be considered and examined as an additional viable restoration tool for coral reefs.https://peerj.com/articles/1732.pdfRestorationEcological modelingGrazingCoral reefsStock enhancement |
| spellingShingle | Uri Obolski Lilach Hadany Avigdor Abelson Potential contribution of fish restocking to the recovery of deteriorated coral reefs: an alternative restoration method? PeerJ Restoration Ecological modeling Grazing Coral reefs Stock enhancement |
| title | Potential contribution of fish restocking to the recovery of deteriorated coral reefs: an alternative restoration method? |
| title_full | Potential contribution of fish restocking to the recovery of deteriorated coral reefs: an alternative restoration method? |
| title_fullStr | Potential contribution of fish restocking to the recovery of deteriorated coral reefs: an alternative restoration method? |
| title_full_unstemmed | Potential contribution of fish restocking to the recovery of deteriorated coral reefs: an alternative restoration method? |
| title_short | Potential contribution of fish restocking to the recovery of deteriorated coral reefs: an alternative restoration method? |
| title_sort | potential contribution of fish restocking to the recovery of deteriorated coral reefs an alternative restoration method |
| topic | Restoration Ecological modeling Grazing Coral reefs Stock enhancement |
| url | https://peerj.com/articles/1732.pdf |
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