Rachel Guyer is the Coral Conservation Affiliate for Florida Sea Grant and works intently with the Nationwide Coral Disturbance Coordinator, Caroline McLaughlin.
Individuals of the 2025 U.S. Caribbean Regional Coral Disturbance Workshop. Picture by Rachel Guyer.
Vibrant sunshine and gentle climate made for a heat welcome to the 2025 U.S. Caribbean Regional Coral Disturbance Workshop. The occasion was held from February 4-6, 2025 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and hosted by Florida Sea Grant (FSG) in collaboration with NOAA’s Coral Program, Puerto Rico Division of Pure and Environmental Sources, and U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI) Division of Planning and Pure Sources. Coral researchers, managers, and practitioners from Florida, Puerto Rico, and the USVI representing authorities businesses, universities, and group companions participated within the occasion.
There’s a lot occurring with respect to coral conservation throughout the globe, and the primary objectives of this assembly had been to trade info, coordinate disturbance preparedness and response efforts, and collaborate on tasks within the U.S. Caribbean area. New threats to corals have necessitated a joint shift in focus from solely stony coral tissue loss illness (SCTLD) – the earlier coral illness of most concern – to broader coral illness and disturbance response efforts all through the area, supported by inter-jurisdiction collaboration. A significant focus was sharing info concerning coral bleaching response, coordinating restoration plans, responding to invasive mushy corals, and discussing federal environmental compliance and funding for coral restoration and storm mitigation – quite a bit to get by in simply two days!
The workshop commenced with jurisdictional updates from the final yr on coral disturbance preparedness and response from companions throughout the Caribbean. Widespread bleaching, invasive mushy coral introduction, illness outbreaks, and boating incidents had been addressed by area. The necessity for elevated communications, knowledge administration, and funding was a typical thread. Some companions shared their successes in creating citizen science monitoring and growing public training on threats impacting their native reefs. Altogether, everybody skilled coral disturbances that illuminated challenges in coordination and response efforts.
Facilitators from the USVI studying participant contributions to the group exercise Bleaching: Classes Discovered. Picture by Rachel Guyer
The creation of two coral rescue coordinator positions for Puerto Rico and the USVI had been prioritized throughout previous workshops in 2023 and 2024 to assist information regional efforts to protect coral biodiversity. These positions had been funded in 2025 by a grant from the Nationwide Fish and Wildlife Basis to FSG, and the coordinators had been employed in March. They’re working to develop a regional coral rescue plan and facilitate a regional coral rescue community.
Two group actions allowed for collaboration and problem-solving on shared challenges confronting the Caribbean. The primary centered on classes discovered from previous bleaching occasions. To offer context, in 2023 and 2024 the USVI, Puerto Rico, and Florida skilled record-breaking warmth and subsequent coral bleaching, with some reefs experiencing greater than 50% prevalence of bleaching. Species that had been most impacted embrace elkhorn coral (Acropora palmata), staghorn coral (Acropora cervicornis), and mountainous star coral (Orbicella faveolata). Regardless of focused rescue efforts, many populations of corals have but to get better. And if that was not sufficient, elevated bleaching led to elevated illness susceptibility, with many corals contracting secondary infections that precipitated mortality.
For the exercise, members had been divided into seven teams and given prompts and flip charts to report and later current their dialogue to everybody. Matters included bleaching extent and impacts, intervention methods and outcomes, future analysis priorities, knowledge assortment challenges and successes, classes discovered, useful resource and capability gaps, and plans for the following bleaching occasion. In the course of the dialogue, all jurisdictions famous funding and capability gaps, knowledge reporting gaps, talked about incorporating molecular methods to elucidate resilience of corals to bleaching, incorporating new know-how into knowledge assortment, and the necessity for response standardization forward of the following bleaching occasion.
