Fig. 2. Illustration of the rapid growth of Acropora palmata and its potential for increasing coral cover through restoration.

a Example photographic timeseries showing the growth of a colony of A. palmata at Buck Island Reef National Monument (BIRNM) over two years³⁰. b Modeled mean (± standard error) increases in the percent cover of A. palmata on the BIRNM reef crest following three scenarios of reef-crest restoration until 2030 and three scenarios of post-restoration mortality (see Methods). The model indicates that a single large-scale restoration effort now could allow reefs at BIRNM to maintain high levels of coral cover until around 2050; however, additional local management, global reduction of carbon emissions, and/or the recovery of ecological processes like sexual reproduction (illustrated conceptually by the gray arrow) or a decrease in climate-related impacts, potentially through acclimatization and/or increased resilience (dotted lines), would be necessary to maintain stable coral populations in the long term. The horizontal line in b denotes the minimum increase in A. palmata cover (25%, to ≥31% total cover) our carbonate budgets suggest is needed for reef-accretion potential to keep pace with lowest projections of sea-level rise for 2100 (Fig. 3).