A CORAL REFUGIUM IN A WARMING WORLD: NATURE VS. NURTURE AT CORAL GARDENS REEF, BELIZE

Coral Gardens has been an ecological refugium for endangered Acropora cervicornis (Staghorn) coral for over a century. However, the refugium status of this location has come under threat due to global climate change and an increasing number of reef stressors. At present the Caribbean is experiencing a potentially devastating marine heatwave and mass bleaching event. The aim of this work is to assess the refugium status of Coral Gardens and to initiate an experiment to test how genets from Coral Gardens might fare outside of their location of origin. In order to document health of live coral in the Coral Gardens site, 5 transects have been surveyed annually since 2012. Transects were photographed in one-meter quadrats, and live coral within each quadrat was identified using Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Lightroom, and MATLAB to determine the average percentage of live coral along each transect. A. cervicornis declined significantly between 2014 and 2017 (from 14.53% to 8.70% at Transect 1 and from 51.67% to 18.09% at Transect 5) following anomalous temperatures and the passage of a hurricane. However live coral increased from 8.70% to 13.89% at T1 and 18.09% to 37.89% at T5 from 2017 to 2023. This rebound in live coral at Coral Gardens warrants further investigation of the resiliency of the Coral Gardens A. cervicornis genet. To test whether the success of the coral is a product of the environmental conditions at the location or an inherited genetic trait, 3 fragments each of A. cervicornis genets collected from 2 different locations: Loggerhead Caye (near Placencia in Southern Belize) and Coral Gardens (near San Pedro in Northern Belize) were out-planted at 7 sites inshore of the Belize Barrier reef for future observation and monitoring. Outplant sites include: Bacalar Chico Marine Reserve, Mexico Rocks, Hol Chan Marine Reserve, Coral Gardens, Caye Caulker Marine Reserve, Silk Caye, and Whipray Caye. Photographs (n = 60-120) of each planted coral fragment were stitched together to create 3D photogrammetry models using Metashape software and Adobe Lightroom. These 42 coral fragments will be surveyed on a regular basis to monitor how the different genets grow in space and time, and to begin to investigate whether some inherent genetic traits (nature) or the environment (nurture) is driving the success of corals at Coral Gardens.