Coral, Fish and other data to inform staghorn coral recovery in the Caribbean Sea from 2012-04-05 to 2014-07-28 (NCEI Accession 0127933)

The goals of the project were to characterize natural, robust Acropora cervicornis populations in different regions, including various aspects of A.cervicornis condition, function (growth and tissue condition), and resident fish assemblages.

To this end, we conducted surveys at sites in four regions (i.e., Dry Tortugas, Southeast Florida, Belize, USVI) designed to span the range of natural A.cervicornis density present each region. In addition, we conducted similar surveys within restored populations of A.cervicornis at two sites in Puerto Rico with high density restored A.cervicornis populations. Lastly, we undertook three hypothesis-driven studies in the Dry Tortugas region only, to investigate the potential for positive feedbacks between the sheltering reef fish community and high density stands of A. cervicornis.