A5026819902- Coral and Marine Ecosystems Studies
- Coastal and Marine Management
- Marine and coastal plant biology
- Marine Ecology and Invasive Species
- Biological Control of Invasive Species
- Echinoderm biology and ecology
- Ocean Acidification Effects and Responses
- Marine and fisheries research
Instituto Nacional de Diabetes, Endocrinología y Nutrición
2023
Echinoderm mass mortality events shape marine ecosystems by altering the dynamics among major benthic groups. The sea urchin Diadema antillarum, virtually extirpated in Caribbean early 1980s an unknown cause, recently experienced another beginning January 2022. We investigated cause of this event through combined molecular biological and veterinary pathologic approaches comparing grossly normal abnormal animals collected from 23 sites, representing locations that were either affected or...
Mangroves, seagrasses, and coral reefs provide ecosystem services for three billion people worldwide. Studying these ecosystems is essential their effective management. With the financial support of French Embassy in Dominican Republic, FUNDEMAR leads MONITOREA program with technical TNC Ministry Environment. The project created national capacities developed a manual based on recognized Caribbean protocols, allowing multiple actors to monitor health space time. goal detect significant...
Los arrecifes de coral en la República Dominicana han experimentado un declive acelerado debido a una serie estresores locales y globales. La extracción comercial peces loros (géneros Scarus Sparisoma) ha llevado reducción las poblaciones estas especies degradación los al papel central que tienen estos organismos el control del crecimiento algas. En intento revertir este problema, autoridades ambientales establecieron vedas para 2017, 2021 2023, cada con duración dos años. Sin embargo,...
Monitoring programs can help understand coral disease dynamics. Here, we present results from a national program in the Dominican Republic (DR) aimed at evaluating diseases 3 times year following nested spatial design. Prevalence of DR varied sites to regions, suggesting that dynamics be driven by local processes and/or across larger scales. Three were common: Dark Spot (DSD), Yellow Band (YBD) and Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD). DSD YBD more prevalent western coast (north south),...
Permanent monitoring programs are valuable to identify drivers of ecosystem trends. For example, in 2021, we reported the first record Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (sctld) along northeastern coast Dominican Republic, affecting major reef—building coral species with a prevalence above 30%. However, few sites such as Carenero remained unaffected by sctld for almost 2 years. The average cover this site was about 18—25% (mean 18.3% ± sd 1.5), and disease did not exceed 7% community. During...