UM scientist Dr. Diego Lirman makes sure new staghorn coral fragments are safely installed at the underwater nursery in Biscayne National Park. Established in 2007, the nursery already has more than 500 coral fragments that are being nurtured and used to restore depleted local reefs.
July 02, 2009 — Virginia Key — As the nation celebrates its birth on the 4th of July, Research Assistant Professor Diego Lirman and fellow Caribbean coral reef nursery scientists will be celebrating as well. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) today announced that The Nature Conservancy and its partners? staghorn and elkhorn coral recovery project, including Lirman's nursery in Biscayne National Park, will receive support from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) to further develop large-scale, in-water coral nurseries and restore reefs along Florida's southern coast and in the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI). The Nature Conservancy will serve as coordinator of the overall project, working with the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, as well as other academic, government and private entities to help repopulate local reef areas. The centerpiece of the proposed activities is the significant expansion of the four existing staghorn nurseries found between Broward County and the Lower Florida Keys, and the establishment of additional nurseries in the Dry Tortugas and the USVI. In all, the project will grow roughly 12,000 corals in Florida to enhance coral populations at 34 degraded reefs in the region. Lirman, in UM's Marine Biology and Fisheries division, established a staghorn coral nursery within Biscayne National Park in 2007. This nursery presently holds approximately 500 fragments, and nursery fragments have already been used to restore four reefs where staghorn corals were depleted.
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