Detritivorous sea cucumbers are important processors of reef sediments and have been hypothesized to enhance coral growth by altering local nutrient availability and seawater chemistry, but whether these effects translate into improved coral performance remains untested. We conducted two analogous field experiments in Mo’orea, French Polynesia, to test whether the sea cucumber Holothuria atra enhances coral growth or photosynt...

The utility of passive vs. active coral restoration continues to be debated as reefs decline worldwide. Here, we evaluated the efficacy of coral transplantation into the degraded East and Center lagoons of Palmyra Atoll. Corals have failed to recover in these sites over the eight decades since disturbances associated with World War II, despite high coral cover elsewhere around the atoll that could theoretically provide source...

Hundreds of studies now document positive relationships between biodiversity and critical ecosystem processes, but as ecological communities worldwide shift toward new species configurations, less is known regarding how the biodiversity of undesirable species will shape the functioning of ecosystems or foundation species. We manipulated macroalgal species richness in experimental field plots to test whether and how the identit...