Shaping the Future of Coral Health: 2025 U.S. Caribbean Coral Disturbance Workshop in Puerto Rico

By: Roxana Aslan, Darimar Dávila Ortiz, and Maria Vega-Rodriguez

Takeaway: The 2025 U.S. Regional Caribbean Disturbance Workshop was held in San Juan where coral reef managers and conservation practitioners from Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands addressed topics on coral restoration, disease, invasive soft corals, resources for coral disturbance response and recovery, and environmental compliance. The main objectives were to share information, learn from each other, and identify solutions to joint challenges.

Over the past several years heat stress leading to coral bleaching, coral disease, invasive and nuisance species, and major storm events have devastated coral reef ecosystems across the Caribbean. Since 2019, NOAA's Coral Reef Conservation Program has funded and facilitated workshops that bring together coral scientists and managers to increase collaboration and knowledge exchange on Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD) and other disturbances in the U.S. Caribbean (U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico). This year's workshop was held in San Juan, Puerto Rico at the Center for Puerto Rico of the Sila M. Calderón Foundation and convened coral managers, practitioners, and researchers from Florida, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI).

As the workshop began, a sense of anticipation filled the room, driven by a collective desire to share fresh perspectives on coral disease and disturbances, address mutual challenges, and strengthen personal connections. The workshop began with each jurisdiction sharing their approaches to disturbance response.

Some approaches include:

• expanding monitoring efforts and using bleaching data to identify heat resistant corals and genotypes
• monitoring for invasive soft corals in high-risk areas by hiring scientific divers and using autonomous underwater vehicles for invasive species removal efforts
• identifying areas of high impact from vessel groundings which need updated navigational charts
• prevention of grounding incidents and other impacts with signage, outreach, and education
• genotyping coral colonies for resilience to thermal stress and disease
• quantifying disease incidence after bleaching
• leveraging existing partnerships and resources to hire staff and train volunteers and citizen scientists for data collection, database creation, and analysis
• the use of GIS tools and dashboards to visualize data
• quantifying and mapping abandoned and derelict vessels
• improving communications by promoting the use of community reporting tools for reef incidents, reef infractions, and health observations

A common theme across the jurisdictions was a shift in the approach from a Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD) and disease-centered response to a multi-disturbance, connected response. This includes refocusing monthly working meetings, identifying and bridging gaps, and following action plans to strengthen early detection and rapid response to emergencies, and disturbances.

Among the needs that were identified by workshop participants were expanding monitoring and rapid response capacity, continued funding, enhanced technology (including photo-orthomosaics and GIS integration), staff capacity, local and regional relationships, increased biosecurity efforts, and a genetic management plan.

An important priority has been the establishment of two coral rescue coordinator positions, one for Puerto Rico and one for the U.S. Virgin Islands. These positions will help the establishment of a Regional Coral Rescue Network, which will facilitate regional resource sharing, coral rescue operations, and data management efforts. The main coral restoration discussion at this workshop centered on highlighting the development of restoration plans in Puerto Rico and Florida and the implementation of the USVI Coral Reef Restoration Plan. Discussions were also held around lessons learned from the 2023-2024 Caribbean-wide bleaching event.

We finished the day with a lightning talk on vessel groundings in Puerto Rico, where we discussed the Department of Natural and Environmental Resources' vessel grounding response protocol that includes coral colony removal and relocation and efforts to remove abandoned vessels.

Deepening the Dialogue

The second day began with a discussion on the invasive octocoral Xenia umbellata, including what we know, what actions have been taken, and what is pending. Participants discussed how the invasive soft coral has smothered all marine ecosystems where it is found which is impacting fisheries and tourism. Puerto Rico currently has periodic monitoring in place to address small recurrences of Xenia and are expanding the search for more patches and continuing removal efforts. Future needs included more robust genetic analysis to establish the propagation route and origin; to identify and rescue any affected coral colonies of importance; a more aggressive outreach campaign to deliver information to aquarists; and, to seek funding for all of these efforts.

We also discussed FEMA mitigation funds for coral reefs as critical maintained infrastructure and FEMA opportunities to support coral reef restoration for risk reduction. Local experts presented on a project underway in Puerto Rico to repair and add hazard mitigation measures for the Culebra reef damaged by Hurricanes Irma and Maria. As a result of years of effort and partnership, FEMA funded the first coral reef restoration project in Puerto Rico for the San Juan Metro Coral Reef Barrier Restoration Project. In the U.S. Virgin Islands, FEMA funded a coral reef flood reduction benefits and cost effectiveness mapping project and a living shoreline database for the Virgin Islands, among others. Workshop participants were given an overview of Hazard Mitigation Assistance Grant requirements and additional FEMA resources, which will be useful for future coral reef restoration for risk reduction projects.

Arrecifes Pro Ciudad, a community partner of Puerto Rico's Department of Natural and Environmental Resources, led an in-depth tour of their water quality monitoring program in Isla Verde. The tour offered a glimpse into their weekly water quality monitoring sites, the parameters they collect, laboratory processing, and educational programming, where they educate the public on how poor water quality poses a significant threat to coral reefs. The tour was not only informative, but the Arrecifes Pro Ciudad staff also excelled in showcasing their work through engaging storytelling and interactive enthusiasm.

Concluding Insights

We gathered for one final day to discuss emergency response and risk management for coral reefs through parametric reef insurance and understanding environmental compliance. We then ended our workshop with a series of fantastic lightning presentations on topics ranging from an update on coral disturbance research at the University of the Virgin Islands to coral bleaching impacts and Xenia impacts in Puerto Rico.

We are grateful to NOAA's Coral Program, Florida Sea Grant, the Puerto Rico Department of Natural and Environmental Resources, and the USVI Department of Planning and Natural Resources for their ongoing support, and to the Center for Puerto Rico of the Sila M. Calderón Foundation for welcoming us to your beautiful facility in San Juan.