Habitat suitability modeling growth and cover trends of staghorn coral (Acropora cervicornis) outplants in the lower Florida Keys

The decline of important reef building corals has motivated the development of habitat suitability models used to identify optimal locations for coral restoration. In the Florida Keys habitat suitability models incorporate coarse spatial data sampled over large areas, resulting in recommended outplant sites at distant locations, making it logistically difficult and expensive to access and regularly monitor. Restoration efforts to date show that outplanting success can vary widely within a limited space, necessitating improved predictive abilities of coral outplant success at high spatial resolutions within a restoration site. With the advent of Structure-from-Motion image reconstruction, fine-scale, site specific, digital terrain models can be created to support habitat suitability model development. In this study, generalized linear mixed models used extracted seafloor terrain attributes and environmental variables to identify within site locations of high Acropora cervicornis growth and healthy coral cover of long-term outplants. Percent healthy coral cover significantly decreased after two years of outplantation. The submodel of corals exclusively less than two years old was unable to identify environmental conditions associated with higher healthy cover. For all corals, outplant recommendations for higher healthy cover are in deeper waters, away from the coast, in less rough terrain, and closer to the reef edge. Model results for growth support these recommended outplant sites, in addition to concave locations near high slope relief. Finally, our results also indicate that marine heat waves, but especially marine cold waves negatively correspond with coral growth, and high wind events positively correspond with coral growth. These model results provide a basis for further endeavors in modeling endangered organismal success, which are vulnerable to minute differences in local environmental conditions.