Evaluacion de corales petreos con potencial para la restauracion de arrecifes en el Pacifico Oriental tropical.

To mitigate the deterioration of coral reef ecosystem, ecological restoration is one of the main and more important tools to recover their ecological integrity. The dramatic loss of coral cover, the replacement of corals by macroalgae in the shallow systems and the low percentage of reef area in the Colombian Pacific demands measures to mitigate coral loss and to identify the factors that exert negative pressure on the persistence of coral formations. The reefs in the Eastern Tropical Pacific (ETP) have unfavorable conditions for their formation and development. In the ETP, Colombia has one of the places with more extensive, developed and diverse coral reefs, being Gorgona Island the most representative of them, and also the better studied in the Pacific, with a high potential to conduct restoration processes. Given the lack of information regarding the species with potential for restoration in the ETP, this project aims to: 1) identify some species of stony corals suitable for restoration, and 2) identify fishes that might affect transplanted corals during growth (by corallivory). Coral fragments of four species will be tested and monitored for growth and survival rates. In addition, the effect of corallivorous fishes on transplanted fragments of Pocillopora damicornis will be assessed using experiments of predatory exclusion. Main expected result will be a preliminary list of stony corals with potential for reef restoration, and ideal measurements for coral transplants to avoid corallivory from fishes.