Reef Resilience Review February 2010

Cold Water Disturbance Response Monitoring in South Florida

Recent Publications and Other Resources

To Join the network or submit updates, contact:
Stephanie Wear,
Marine Protected Area Specialist
The Nature Conservancy, Global Marine Initiative
resilience@tnc.org

For more information about The Nature Conservancy's Global Marine Initiative, visit: www.nature.org/marine

This newsletter is brought to you through the generous support of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

February 2010 Newsletter
Distributed by the Global Marine Initiative

Cold Water Disturbance Response
Monitoring in South Florida

Meaghan Johnson diving over a recently dead coral head
© Caitlin Lustic, TNC

As part of the Florida Reef Resilience Program (FRRP), The Nature Conservancy coordinates the Disturbance Response Monitoring (DRM) program, which is made up of a network of scientific divers from public agencies, universities and other non-governmental organizations. This monitoring network includes members spanning the region from the Dry Tortugas to the St. Lucie Inlet on Florida's east coast. Conducting annual surveys over an eight week period during summer peak bleaching temperatures is the primary task of this group of scientific divers. Coral bleaching data from these surveys allow scientists to zero in on which corals and reefs have been more or less resilient in years past by measuring coral species diversity, abundance, and size and how resilient they are at present by assessing their condition.

In January 2010, a week of record low temperatures in South Florida caused water temperatures to drop as low as 45° F or 7° C, far below the typical lows of the upper 60’s F, or 20° C. There has not been a cold weather event like this since 1977, when it snowed in Miami. These sustained cold water temperatures triggered severe coral bleaching and even outright coral death. Early reports of coral mortality in the nearshore waters prompted The Nature Conservancy to alert the FRRP Partners and issue an emergency request for the scientists to conduct the disturbance response surveys. The ability to mobilize a rapid response underscores the importance of a coral bleaching response plan. In this case, even though the DRM surveys are typically focused on warm water coral bleaching, they were designed and ready for use in disturbance situations such as this one.

The surveys are taking place over a three week period immediately following the event to assess the extent of the cold water damage. Survey sites are based on a probabilistic sampling design, which creates new sites for each sampling event. Sea Surface Temperature (SST) data from the University of South Florida has also been incorporated into the selection of these sampling sites to focus efforts on sites where the water was the coldest. Once the surveys are complete, the divers will enter their data into an online database that will be queried for immediate results. Results from these surveys will help us to better understand which reef areas and species may be more resilient during these cold water events. Additional monitoring will continue over the next several months to track how individual reefs and corals are able to respond and recover from this disturbance.

For more information on the DRM program (e.g. data results, lessons learned) please check out our case study featured on the Reef Resilience website.

Spotlight on Bonaire

Bonaire is a crescent shaped island situated in the southern Caribbean approximately 100 km north of Venezuela. The small undeveloped satellite island of Klein Bonaire is located approximately 750 m off the western shore of Bonaire and is internationally recognized as having wetlands of significance by the RAMSAR Convention on Wetlands and is part of the Bonaire National Marine Park (BNMP). The park encompasses 2,700 hectares of fringing coral reef, seagrass and mangrove ecosystems (the largest semi-enclosed seagrass and mangrove bay in the Netherlands Antilles), and contains diverse habitats from the shore to intertidal environments, and from coral reefs to deep water environments.

The mission of the BNMP is to protect and manage the island’s natural, cultural and historical resources, while allowing ecologically sustainable use for the benefit of future generations. The BNMP strongly believe that the first step to ensure healthy and resilient corals is to protect water quality and reduce all stresses. Within this framework, the BNMP has been taking different conservation and management actions to address the distinct problems of overfishing, coastal development, pollution, and negative impacts of tourism.

In addition to fishing pressures, Bonaire is experiencing rapid coastal development. To minimize the impact of construction practices, the BNMP developed a booklet of Construction Guidelines, together with various governmental agencies, local waste management and construction companies, land owners and local NGOs. The BNMP has also run an intensive nutrient monitoring program; preliminary data show that the levels of dissolved nitrogen are high and that the most probable cause is due to sewage and unsustainable irrigation practices in the coastal zone. To mitigate this sewage water input to the sea, the BNMP is working together with resort operators to establish “water balances,” and to improve fresh water and waste water management.