Austin Bowden-Kerby

• PhD Marine Science, MS Biology, BS Marine Biology
• Managing Director at Corals for Conservation

The widespread demise of coral reefs due to climate change is now a certainty, and investing in restoration without facing this stark reality risks failure. The 50 Reefs Initiative, the dominant adaptation model for coral reefs is examined, and a new coral-focused paradigm is proposed, based on helping coral reefs adapt to rising temperature, to en...

Many coral species face extinction in the coming decades, and for endangered species it is timely to consider captive breeding. Well managed, and even pristine areas have proven no more resilient than degraded zones in the face of human impacts. The presence of conservation areas in Ilha Grande Bay, Rio de Janeiro Brazil have proven insufficient to...

This is the updated report on the Kiritmati coral restoration work, being carried out on arguably the most bleaching impacted coral reef on the planet.

What is IPBES? IPBES—the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services—was established in 2012 to serve a role linking the science and knowledge about nature and nature’s benefits to people with policy and decision-making. IPBES has many expert groups, including one that focusses on Scenarios and Models of Biodiversity of Ecosy...

The document has three main sections 1. Addressing diabetes and nutritional health through use of available seaweeds and wild plant foods, 2. Improving agriculture and food security using local resources, and 3. Restoration of marine resources affected by increasing climate stress and fishing pressure, including the ongoing coral restoration projec...

This Manual is drafted as a supplement and to complement the recent publication: “Acropora Restoration Guide: Best Practices for Propagation and Population Enhancement” produced by TNC, The Nature Conservancy (Johnson et al. 2011). Rather than drafting an entirely new restoration manual, we have chosen to focus on documenting advances that were not...

Acropora cervicornis (staghorn coral) and Acropora palmata (elkhorn coral), once common features of shallow Caribbean reefs observed growing as large stands or thickets, are now found mainly as remnant pockets or isolated colonies at a fraction of their historical areal extent. In February 2010, a large, surviving population of A. cervicornis was s...

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The reduced biodiversity of Caribbean coral reefs has been attributed to disturbances of various types. Many of the once abundant coral species have disappeared from Jamaican coral reefs with algae taking their place resulting in a less attractive reef habit with fewer fish which has affected the Jamaican economy. The mortality of Acropora species...

Low-cost and environmentally sustainable coral reef restoration methods modeled after natural coral reef recovery processes and appropriate for use in developing countries were investigated. The study focused on post-fragmentation processes important to natural coral reef recovery and to successful transplantation, quantifying size-specific, substr...

The occurrence of shallow-water (0.9 to 1.3 m) rhodoliths in back reef environments in southwest Puerto Rico is reported. The rhodoliths were generally cylindrical, discoidal or irregular in shape with an average longest dimension of 7.2 cm. They occurred at a maximum density of 524 m−2. The rhodoliths were composed of mostly coral nuclei with conc...

Thousands of white-spined sea urchins, Tripneustes ventricosus, were observed dying in southwestern Puerto Rico during January and February 1995 by some of the authors and other members of the Department of Marine Sciences, University of Puerto Rico (DMS). This mortality was apparently islandwide, but was not well documented in other parts of Puert...