Coral Restoration Foundation

During the week of June 10^th through June 17 2008, Ken Nedimyer, president of the Coral Restoration Foundation, participated in a weeklong saturation mission in the National Underwater Research Center’s (NURC) Aquarius at Conch reef in the Florida Keys. The mission’s name, Aquarius Coral Restoration/Resilience Experiments (ACRRE), summarized the purpose of the mission to set up coral restoration experiments and study survival, growth rates, and resilience of corals collected from different geographical areas and planted in different outplanting patterns. 

Synopsis of data from the Ken Nedimyer – Martin Moe Diadema sea urchin restoration demonstration project on two patch reefs of the Upper Keys

A project funded through FKNMS was begun in the fall of 2001 offshore of the Upper Keys to explore the feasibility and ecological results of translocating juvenile long-spined sea urchins, Diadema antillarum, from areas with relatively high settlement and extensive winter mortality, the reef crest rubble zones, to nearby deeper water (about 25 feet, 7.5 m) patch reefs at densities approaching those on Florida reefs before the Diadema plague of the early 1980s. Four patch reefs: two experimental and two controls, varying in size from about 44 to 96 sq. m were selected for the study.