Research History of Corals and Coral Reefs in Cuba

Abstract

This chapter summarizes the history of the scientific knowledge regarding Cuban coral reefs. The work of Antonio Parra, published in 1787, is the first book to refer to species of reef life in Cuba. In the nineteenth century, the works of Alexander von Humboldt, Charles Darwin, Ramón de la Sagra, Felipe Poey, and Rafael Arango are the most prominent, along with the debates on the origins of reefs by William O. Crosby and Alexander Agassiz. During the twentieth century, William M. Davis and William Smith considered the reefs on the southern coasts of Cuba to be the longest in the West Indies. Also in this century, multiple institutions devoted to marine studies emerged and research grew exponentially. The monograph by Zlatarski and Martínez Estalella, published in 1980, demonstrated the variety of the Cuban scleractinian and the presence of intermediate phenotypes of acknowledged species. Information is presented concerning “true” coral barrier reefs in Cuba, the contribution of projects such as AGRRA, the early warning voluntary monitoring in coral reefs, the studies of the mesophotic coral ecosystems, and the economic value of the Cuban coral reefs, with references to the most notable publications in the last 30 years.