With the deterioration of coral reef habitats worldwide, marine conservation involves an increased ffort to restore these complex ecosystems. While in-situ nurseries have been widely adopted, their success and potential to be scaled up still require more detailed assessments. Coral nurseries are not only important to provide coral fragments to outplant degraded reefs, but they can also provide valuable habitat and structure for other species. The aim of this study was to establish whether Acropora cervicornis nurseries, a critically endangered coral species, in the southeastern Dominican Republic are successful over time and if they function as a suitable habitat for invertebrate assemblages. For this, using an experimental approach, we followed up through time changes in benthic composition, structural complexity, and invertebrate assemblages as the nurseries become more complex due to coral growth. After one year, our results indicate that fragments grown in nurseries had higher structural complexity and had a significant impact on associated invertebrate abundance. We also found significant differences among sites, illustrating the importance of site determination when deciding where to establish nurseries.
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