Title: Short term attraction of fi sh to newly restored coral reef areas around Cerf Island, Seychelles

Biography:

Ilja Voorsmit is a starting marine scientist with a passion for coral reefs and their associated biota. Recently graduated (while writing not officially graduated yet) from the International Master In Marine Biological Resources (IMBRsea), this research represents the thesis with which he obtained his Master Degree.

Abstract

While coral reefs are threatened by a multitude of factors such as sea surface temperature rise, overexploitation and ocean acidification, they are home to a third of marine life discovered so far. The threats are thus not only directly affecting the scleractinian coral themselves but also the associated marine life. Reef-associated fish assemblages were monitored around Cerf Island, Seychelles for six weeks during February and March 2019. Afterward, coral transplantation was performed, restoring 125m2 of degraded reef with a density of 4 coral fragments/m2. Once the transplantation was finished a week was given for the corals to adapt to their new environment. Then in April 2019, four weeks of monitoring was done to collect data on the fish assemblages after transplantation. Here we show that coral transplantation does not have an immediate effect on the fish assemblages in the area. We suggest that monitoring should continue for longer periods of time and that transplantation should be extended over a larger surface area as well as a different period in the year when surface temperatures are not likely to exceed 30°C.