Downtime Notice: Thursday, May 29 @ 2:00pm Eastern. InPort and its associated services will be under maintenance and unavailable for the deployment of InPort Release 6.0.2. Downtime Schedule May 29, 2025 2:00pm - 3:00pm Eastern / 11:00am - 12:00pm Pacific / 8:00am - 9:00am Hawaii Impacted Areas - InPort Website: https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/inport - InPort WAF: https://www.fisheri...
View All
Search Help Show/Hide Menu
SEFSC Metadata Library > POPULATION & ECOSYSTEMS MONITORING DIV > Other Protected Resources Projects > Surveillance of wild and outplanted staghorn co... > CRCP-Surveillance of wild and outplanted A. cer... >

Prevalence, consequences, and mitigation of fireworm predation on endangered staghorn coral

Document (DOC)  |  Southeast Fisheries Science Center (SEFSC)
GUID: gov.noaa.nmfs.inport:26529  |  Updated: January 19, 2023  |  Published / External 
Summary
Item Identification
Keywords
Document Info
Support Roles
Extents
Access Info
URLs
Catalog Details

Summary

DOI: 10.3354/meps10996

Description

In the current era of reduced coral populations, the effects of predation are likely to compromise the growing investment in restocking of imperiled coral populations and may be a strong, chronic deterrent of natural population recovery. A 2 yr surveillance study documented highly variable prevalence of predation by the fireworm Hermodice carunculata on both wild (0 to 51%) and restocked (0 to 53%) populations of the Caribbean staghorn coral Acropora cervicornis, but significantly higher prevalence overall in 2012 than 2011. In addition, individual predation scars (branch tips) were tagged to determine the costs of predation both in terms of healing time (i.e. to recover positive rates of branch growth) and in terms of likelihood of progressive diseaselike tissue loss on preyed branch tips. The risk of preyed branches showing progressive tissue loss at the subsequent survey was 10 times higher than for non-preyed branches. A survival analysis indicated an estimated mean time to healing for preyed branch tips of 110 ± 6 d (95% confidence). Finally, an experiment conducted in 2013 tested whether removing the dead skeleton from preyed branch tips could accelerate recovery. Indeed, this intervention shortened the mean time to formationof a new apical tip to 46 d (range: 22 to 92 d). Thus, fireworm predation imposes significant costs on both remnant wild and restocked staghorn colonies, but removing dead tips, rather than leaving them to bioerode, is a useful strategy to accelerate recovery from predation.

Document Information

Document Type
Journal article

Document Format
Acrobat Portable Document Format

Publication Date
2014-12-03

Controlled Theme Keywords

Acropora cervicornis

Contact Information

No contact information is available for this record.

Please contact the owner organization (SEFSC) for inquiries on this record.

Extents

Geographic Area 1

-80.47016666667° W, -80.29733333333° E, 25.12416666667° N, 24.94633333333° S

Reef sites in the upper Keys ranging from Conch reef to Key Largo Dry Rocks; specifically

Reef Names

Molasses

Aquarius

Conch Shallow

KL Dry Rocks

Tav Patch A

Tav Patch B

Little Conch

CRF Nursery

Time Frame 1
2011 - 2013

Item Identification

Title: Prevalence, consequences, and mitigation of fireworm predation on endangered staghorn coral
Short Name: Fireworm effects on staghorn coral
Status: Completed
Publication Date: 2014-12-03
Abstract:

In the current era of reduced coral populations, the effects of predation are likely to compromise the growing investment in restocking of imperiled coral populations and may be a strong, chronic deterrent of natural population recovery. A 2 yr surveillance study documented highly variable prevalence of predation by the fireworm Hermodice carunculata on both wild (0 to 51%) and restocked (0 to 53%) populations of the Caribbean staghorn coral Acropora cervicornis, but significantly higher prevalence overall in 2012 than 2011. In addition, individual predation scars (branch tips) were tagged to determine the costs of predation both in terms of healing time (i.e. to recover positive rates of branch growth) and in terms of likelihood of progressive diseaselike tissue loss on preyed branch tips. The risk of preyed branches showing progressive tissue loss at the subsequent survey was 10 times higher than for non-preyed branches. A survival analysis indicated an estimated mean time to healing for preyed branch tips of 110 ± 6 d (95% confidence). Finally, an experiment conducted in 2013 tested whether removing the dead skeleton from preyed branch tips could accelerate recovery. Indeed, this intervention shortened the mean time to formationof a new apical tip to 46 d (range: 22 to 92 d). Thus, fireworm predation imposes significant costs on both remnant wild and restocked staghorn colonies, but removing dead tips, rather than leaving them to bioerode, is a useful strategy to accelerate recovery from predation.
Other Citation Details:

Miller MW, Marmet C, Cameron CM, Williams DE. (2014) Prevalence, consequences, and mitigation of fireworm predation on endangered staghorn coral. Mar Ecol Prog Ser. 516: 187–194. doi: 10.3354/meps10996
DOI (Digital Object Identifier): 10.3354/meps10996

Keywords

Theme Keywords

Thesaurus Keyword
World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS)
Acropora cervicornis View WoRMS Aphia Record
UNCONTROLLED
None Corallivory
None fireworm predation
None Hermodice carunculata
None Restoration
None staghorn coral

Temporal Keywords

Thesaurus Keyword
UNCONTROLLED
None 2011-2012

Spatial Keywords

Thesaurus Keyword
UNCONTROLLED
None Florida Keys

Document Information

Document Type: Journal article
Format: Acrobat Portable Document Format
Status Code: Published

Support Roles

Co-Author

CC ID: 355284
Date Effective From: 2014
Date Effective To:
Contact (Person): Williams, Dana E
Address: 75 Virginia Beach Drive
Miami, FL 33149
Unites States
Email Address: dana.williams@noaa.gov
Phone: 305-767-3262
URL: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Dana_Williams3

Co-Author

CC ID: 355275
Date Effective From: 2014
Date Effective To:
Contact (Person): Cameron, Caitlin
Address: 75 Virginia Beach Drive
Miami, FL 33149
USA
Email Address: caitlin.cameron@noaa.gov
View Historical Support Roles

Extents

Currentness Reference: Ground Condition

Extent Group 1

Extent Group 1 / Geographic Area 1

CC ID: 355286
W° Bound: -80.47016666667
E° Bound: -80.29733333333
N° Bound: 25.12416666667
S° Bound: 24.94633333333
Description

Reef sites in the upper Keys ranging from Conch reef to Key Largo Dry Rocks; specifically

Reef Names

Molasses

Aquarius

Conch Shallow

KL Dry Rocks

Tav Patch A

Tav Patch B

Little Conch

CRF Nursery

Extent Group 1 / Time Frame 1

CC ID: 355287
Time Frame Type: Range
Start: 2011
End: 2013

Access Information

Security Class: Unclassified
Data Access Policy:

Open to everyone
Data Access Procedure:

download from provided links
Data Access Constraints:

None

URLs

URL 1

CC ID: 213565
URL: https://doi.org/10.3354/meps10996
Name: Landing Page of article
URL Type:
Online Resource

Catalog Details

Catalog Item ID: 26529
GUID: gov.noaa.nmfs.inport:26529
Metadata Record Created By: Margaret W Miller
Metadata Record Created: 2015-08-19 13:26+0000
Metadata Record Last Modified By: Lee M Weinberger
Metadata Record Last Modified: 2023-01-19 17:44+0000
Metadata Record Published: 2022-04-27
Owner Org: SEFSC
Metadata Publication Status: Published Externally
Do Not Publish?: N
Metadata Last Review Date: 2022-04-27
Metadata Review Frequency: 1 Year
Metadata Next Review Date: 2023-04-27