Abstract
Evidence suggests that Indo-Pacific branching corals exhibit increased growth when grown in close proximity to other coral species, potentially as a strategy to rapidly occupy bottom space that may be used by competing neighboring species. This study focuses on three species of Caribbean massive corals identified as restoration priorities to identify patterns of growth across same-species and mixed-species assemblies, and in different outplant densities. The results reveal that the effects are unique across each species – all corals in low density groups experienced the fastest growth overall, averaging 75% increases from initial size, but Pseudodiploria clivosa and Pseudodiploria strigosa in high densities experienced higher growth when grown in polyculture assemblies. The high variability of effects across the three species highlights a need for restoration practitioners to apply restoration and nursery techniques with a species-level specificity in order to maximize the growth of these slow-growing species.