Dick Dodge NCRI Seminar Series:

Coral Recovery: Identifying Barriers and

Advancing Solutions

The Dick Dodge NCRI Seminar Series features presentations from leading researchers dedicated to the future of coral reefs and ocean ecosystems. In this session, we welcome Dr. Joana Figueiredo, NCRI Executive Director, to discuss why Florida's Coral Reef has failed to recover from major disturbances and what factors, from reduced fecundity to larval surviva, may be limiting natural recruitment, and whether restoration can help rebuild reef resilience.

Coral Recovery: Identifying Barriers and Advancing Solutions

Large disturbances, such as disease or warm-induced bleaching, have caused sharp declines in coral cover in Florida' Coral Reef. However, and perhaps more importantly, these disturbances are not followed by a period of recovery, indicating that the resilience of the system is eroded.

This talk discusses what we know (and don't know) about the factors that may be limiting coral recovery through natural recruitment. We explore potential bottlenecks across the coral's early life cycle, including reduced fecundity, spawning asynchrony, spacing between reproductive colonies (Allee effects), and issues preventing larval development and settlement, and post-settlement survival and growth. Finally, we consider whether, and under what conditions, coral restoration could help accelerate reef recovery and rebuild ecosystem resilience.

Dr. Joana Figueiredo

Dr. Joana Figueiredo is a Professor at the Halmos College of Arts and Sciences, Nova Southeastern University and Executive Direcotr of the National Coral Reef Insitute. Originally from Lisbon, Portugal, she earned her B.S. and Ph.D. in Marine Sciences at the University of Lisbon, followed by postdoctoral fellowships at James Cook University, Australia, and the University of the Ryukyus, Japan. She studies coral sexual reproduction and larval ecology, with recent work spanning the lab-based sexual propagation of corals for reef restoration, mapping larval dispersal patterns in Florida's Coral Reef to guide conservation planning, modeling how ocean warming weakens reef connectivity, and showing that minimizing local stressors like sedimentation can buffer corals against climate change. She has published 39 peer-reviewed articles in journals including Nature Climate Change, Global Change Biology, PNAS, and Ecology, and serves as a Topic Editor for Coral Reefs.

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