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1. Extending the natural adaptive capacity of coral holobionts

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-021-00214-3  

   Voolstra, Christian R.; Suggett, David J.; Peixoto, Raquel S.; Parkinson, John E.; Quigley, Kate M.; Silveira, Cynthia B.; Sweet, Michael; Muller, Erinn M.; Barshis, Daniel J.; Bourne, David G.; et al (October 2021, Nature Reviews Earth & Environment)

   null (Ed.)

   Anthropogenic climate change and environmental degradation destroy coral reefs, the ecosystem services they provide, and the livelihoods of close to a billion people who depend on these services. Restoration approaches to increase the resilience of corals are therefore necessary to counter environmental pressures relevant to climate change projections. In this Review, we examine the natural processes that can increase the adaptive capacity of coral holobionts, with the aim of preserving ecosystem functioning under future ocean conditions. Current approaches that centre around restoring reef cover can be integrated with emerging approaches to enhance coral stress resilience and, thereby, allow reefs to regrow under a new set of environmental conditions. Emerging approaches such as standardized acute thermal stress assays, selective sexual propagation, coral probiotics, and environmental hardening could be feasible and scalable in the real world. However, they must follow decision-making criteria that consider the different reef, environmental, and ecological conditions. The implementation of adaptive interventions tailored around nature-based solutions will require standardized frameworks, appropriate ecological risk–benefit assessments, and analytical routines for consistent and effective utilization and global coordination. 

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2. A global database on coral recovery following marine heatwaves

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-024-03221-3  

   van_Woesik, Robert; Kratochwill, Chelsey (December 2024, Scientific Data)

   Abstract Coral reefs support the world’s most diverse marine ecosystem and provide invaluable goods and services for millions of people worldwide. They are however experiencing frequent and intensive marine heatwaves that are causing coral bleaching and mortality. Coarse-grained climate models predict that few coral reefs will survive the 3 °C sea-surface temperature rise in the coming century. Yet, field studies show localized pockets of coral survival and recovery even under high-temperature conditions. Quantifying recovery from marine heatwaves is central to making accurate predictions of coral-reef trajectories into the near future. Here we introduce the world’s most comprehensive database on coral recovery following marine heatwaves and other disturbances, called Heatwaves and Coral-Recovery Database (HeatCRD) encompassing 29,205 data records spanning 44 years from 12,266 sites, 83 countries, and 160 data sources. These data provide essential information to coral-reef scientists and managers to best guide coral-reef conservation efforts at both local and regional scales. 

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3. Coral Disease: Direct and Indirect Agents, Mechanisms of Disease, and Innovations for Increasing Resistance and Resilience

   https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-marine-011123-102337  

   Vega_Thurber, Rebecca L; Silva, Denise; Speare, Lauren; Croquer, Aldo; Veglia, Alex J; Alvarez-Filip, Lorenzo; Zaneveld, Jesse R; Muller, Erinn M; Correa, Adrienne MS (September 2024, Annual Review of Marine Science)

   As climate change drives health declines of tropical reef species, diseases are further eroding ecosystem function and habitat resilience. Coral disease impacts many areas around the world, removing some foundation species to recorded low levels and thwarting worldwide efforts to restore reefs. What we know about coral disease processes remains insufficient to overcome many current challenges in reef conservation, yet cumulative research and management practices are revealing new disease agents (including bacteria, viruses, and eukaryotes), genetic host disease resistance factors, and innovative methods to prevent and mitigate epizootic events (probiotics, antibiotics, and disease resistance breeding programs). The recent outbreak of stony coral tissue loss disease across the Caribbean has reenergized and mobilized the research community to think bigger and do more. This review therefore focuses largely on novel emerging insights into the causes and mechanisms of coral disease and their applications to coral restoration and conservation. 

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4. Assessing the potential for demographic restoration and assisted evolution to build climate resilience in coral reefs

   https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.2650  

   DeFilippo, Lukas B.; McManus, Lisa C.; Schindler, Daniel E.; Pinsky, Malin L.; Colton, Madhavi A.; Fox, Helen E.; Tekwa, E. W.; Palumbi, Stephen R.; Essington, Timothy E.; Webster, Michael M. (October 2022, Ecological Applications)

   Abstract Interest is growing in developing conservation strategies to restore and maintain coral reef ecosystems in the face of mounting anthropogenic stressors, particularly climate warming and associated mass bleaching events. One such approach is to propagate coral coloniesex situand transplant them to degraded reef areas to augment habitat for reef‐dependent fauna, prevent colonization from spatial competitors, and enhance coral reproductive output. In addition to such “demographic restoration” efforts, manipulating the thermal tolerance of outplanted colonies through assisted relocation, selective breeding, or genetic engineering is being considered for enhancing rates of evolutionary adaptation to warming. Although research into such “assisted evolution” strategies has been growing, their expected performance remains unclear. We evaluated the potential outcomes of demographic restoration and assisted evolution in climate change scenarios using an eco‐evolutionary simulation model. We found that supplementing reefs with pre‐existing genotypes (demographic restoration) offers little climate resilience benefits unless input levels are large and maintained for centuries. Supplementation with thermally resistant colonies was successful at improving coral cover at lower input levels, but only if maintained for at least a century. Overall, we found that, although demographic restoration and assisted evolution have the potential to improve long‐term coral cover, both approaches had a limited impact in preventing severe declines under climate change scenarios. Conversely, with sufficient natural genetic variance and time, corals could readily adapt to warming temperatures, suggesting that restoration approaches focused on building genetic variance may outperform those based solely on introducing heat‐tolerant genotypes. 

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5. Biomimetic chemical microhabitats enhance coral settlement

   https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tibtech.2025.03.019  

   Kundu, Samapti; Potenti, Simone; Quinlan, Zachary A; Willard, Helena; Chen, Justin; Noritake, Timothy; Levy, Natalie; Karimi, Zahra; Jorissen, Hendrikje; Hancock, Joshua R; et al (May 2025, Trends in Biotechnology)

   Anthropogenic stressors pose substantial threats to the existence of coral reefs. Achieving successful coral recruitment stands as a bottleneck in reef restoration and hybrid reef engineering efforts. Here, we enhance coral settlement through the development of biomimetic microhabitats that replicate the chemical landscape of healthy reefs. We engineered a soft biomaterial, SNAP-X, comprising silica nanoparticles (NPs), biopolymers, and algal exometabolites, to enrich reef microhabitats with bioactive molecules from crustose coralline algae (CCA). Coral settlement was enhanced over 20-fold using SNAP-X-coated substrates compared with uncoated controls. SNAP-X is designed to release chemical signals slowly (>1 month) under natural seawater conditions, and can be rapidly applied to natural reef substrates via photopolymerization, facilitating the light-assisted 3D printing of microengineered habitats. We anticipate that these biomimetic chemical microhabitats will be widely used to augment coral settlement on degraded reefs and to support ecosystem processes on hybrid reefs. 

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