Reef-wide outplanting of corals susceptible to stony coral tissue loss disease begins
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The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and our coral reef restoration partners announce the recent successful outplanting of 1,152 coral colonies along Florida’s Coral Reef as part of the largest coordinated experimental outplanting effort in Florida to date.
Reef restoration experiments in Florida have never been replicated on such a large scale before, with 24 outplanting sites spanning from Martin County down the coast of southeast Florida to Key West.
The purpose of this project is to determine the fate of corals that are susceptible to stony coral tissue loss disease when outplanted across Florida’s coral reef where the disease is still present but no longer found in epidemic proportions. The knowledge gained during this study will pave the way for future expansions in the restoration of disease-sus