Abstract
Mission Iconic Reefs (M:IR) is an ambitious restoration initiative to outplant corals on degraded reefs in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. This collaborative effort combines resources from government agencies, state bodies, universities, and non-profit organizations. The primary goal of M:IR is to increase coral cover from 2% to 25% and enhance reef biodiversity. However, more frequent surveys are needed for quantifying ecosystem changes from coral restoration efforts, and traditional surveys are too labor intensive for frequent biodiversity assessments. The goal of this study is to develop and test environmental DNA (eDNA) methods and metabarcoding protocols to characterize biodiversity and relative abundance changes in invertebrates, fish, and microbes specific to Florida’s Coral Reefs (FCR). By using eDNA, quarterly biodiversity assessments can be conducted to identify changes from restoration. This work can give unique insights to presence/ absence of keystone or indicator species across time and provide a view of relative composition in the ecosystem over time. The purpose of this study is to implement these tools at M:IR sites for biomonitoring and to transition biodiversity assessments to M:IR managers. With these eDNA tools, restoration efforts and managers will have a more holistic assessment of success and shortcomings. This work will provide foundational genomic data to reference when investigating ecosystem level biodiversity, and the project design can be used as a framework for other Florida biomonitoring studies.