The extensive regional loss of the Caribbean coral Acropora palmata over the past 25 years promoted its designation in 2006 as a ‘threatened species’ by the US National Marine Fisheries Service under the Endangered Species Act (Federal Register 2006). The major cause for the loss of this coral species has been white-band disease, which is related to a bacterial agent that only attacks the genus Acropora (e.g., Gladfelter 1982; Peters et al. 1983; Aronson and Precht 2001).

Like many other Caribbean coral reefs, the Belize Barrier Reef has been progressively losing A. palmata since the early 1980s. Today the shallow fore reef off Carrie Bow Cay is characterized by dead standing and collapsed branches of A. palmata extensively bored by chitons and clionid sponges, and encrusted by crustose coralline algae (Fig. 1). Recent observations at this site have revealed that new healthy colonies of A. palmata are overgrowing these bored and encrusted branches (Fig. 2a, b). At the southern limit of the Carrie Bow Cay shallow fore reef, numerous large colonies of A. palmata are flourishing, with no indication of white-band disease, indicating the return of this important reef-building coral.

Fig. 1
figure 1

Dead, chiton-bored Acropora palmata encrusted with crustose coralline algae, shallow fore reef, Carrie Bow Cay

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Fig. 2
figure 2

Thriving colonies of Acropora palmata on the southern end of the shallow fore reef, Carrie Bow Cay, March 2007

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