Setting the foundation for renewal: restoring sponge communities aids the ecological recovery of Florida Bay

Abstract

Coastal ecosystems are constantly buffeted by anthropogenic forces that degrade habitats and alter ecological processes and functions; in turn, this habitat degradation diminishes the ecosystem goods and services on which humans rely. Within the last few decades, the field of restoration ecology has burgeoned into a discipline that marries scientific rigor with functional restoration practice-an idea championed by Pete Peterson and his research. Here, we describe our efforts to restore the hard-bottom sponge communities of Florida Bay, FL (USA)-a once-diverse subtropical lagoon severely degraded by cyanobacteria blooms-and the scientific and practical lessons learned from those efforts. Sponge community restoration yielded insights into basic sponge biology and ecology (e.g., density-dependent growth rates) and hastened the recovery of ecological processes (e.g., rates of sedimentation, structuring of water column characteristics, soundscape productions). Because the results of our initial restoration efforts were promising, our collaboration among academic researchers, natural resource managers, and non-governmental organizations has begun scaling up restoration efforts to re-establish the sponge communities over large areas of degraded hard-bottom to "jump start" the ecological recovery of Florida Bay. Though our efforts show promise for ecological recovery, restoration will require a concerted effort by scientists, resource managers, and citizens to stem the anthropogenic drivers of ecological degradation of this unique South Florida ecosystem.

Introduction: Honoring the contribution of Charles H. Peterson (1946–2020) to the field of marine ecology

“…A final set of papers helps to advance restoration ecology, a topic of great interest and importance to Pete. Butler et al (2021) reveal the role sponges play in helping to facilitate coral restoration. Grabowski et al (2022) and Powers and Grabowski (2023) revisit and extend our understanding of the role that habitat structure, location, and hydrodynamics play in successful oyster restoration efforts.…”

Progress of Ecological Restoration Research Based on Bibliometric Analysis

“…It provides a novel perspective, namely a historical perspective, and laid the foundation for coastal ecosystem restoration. This has triggered a wave of research on driving factors such as pollution, water degradation, and climate change [45,46], as well as measures to restore coastal ecosystems [47,48]. The second most frequently cited article was "The value of estuarine and coastal ecosystem services" by Professor Edward B. Barbier [49] of the University of Wyoming, which was published in Ecological Monographs in 2011, with 2626 citations worldwide.…”

Habitat Restoration Restores Underwater Soundscapes and Larval Recruitment

“…Thus, the near-complete loss of these crucial inhabitants of hardbottom has changed the ecological character of the environment (Valentine and Butler, 2019). To combat the loss of ecological functions, we have tested the feasibility of restoring sponge communities by transplanting portions of sponges taken from areas unaffected by the cyanobacteria blooms into areas degraded by the sponge die-offs (Butler et al, 2021). The present study takes advantage of those restoration efforts by utilizing some of the sites established in that project.…”