Global trajectories of the long-term decline of coral reef ecosystems

Degradation of coral reef ecosystems began centuries ago, but there is no global summary of the magnitude of change. We compiled records, extending back thousands of years, of the status and trends of seven major guilds of carnivores, herbivores, and architectural species from 14 regions. Large animals declined before small animals and architectural species, and Atlantic reefs declined before reefs in the Red Sea and Australia, but the trajectories of decline were markedly similar worldwide. All reefs were substantially degraded long before outbreaks of coral disease and bleaching. Regardless of these new threats, reefs will not survive without immediate protection from human exploitation over large spatial scales.     

Caribbean reef development was independent of coral diversity over 28 million years

The relationship between natural variations in coral species diversity, reef development, and ecosystem function on coral reefs is poorly understood. Recent coral diversity varies 10-fold among geographic regions, but rates of reef growth are broadly similar, suggesting that diversity is unimportant for reef development. Differences in diversity may reflect regional differences in long-term biotic history in addition to environmental conditions. Using a combination of new and published fossil and stratigraphic data, we compared changes in coral diversity and reef development within the tropical western Atlantic over the past 28 million years. Reef development was unrelated to coral diversity, and the largest reef tracts formed after extinction had reduced diversity by 50%. High diversity is thus not essential for the growth and persistence of coral reefs.     

Long-term region-wide declines in Caribbean corals

We report a massive region-wide decline of corals across the entire Caribbean basin, with the average hard coral cover on reefs being reduced by 80%, from about 50% to 10% cover, in three decades. Our meta-analysis shows that patterns of change in coral cover are variable across time periods but largely consistent across subregions, suggesting that local causes have operated with some degree of synchrony on a region-wide scale. Although the rate of coral loss has slowed in the past decade compared to the 1980s, significant declines are persisting. The ability of Caribbean coral reefs to cope with future local and global environmental change may be irretrievably compromised.     

Projecting coral reef futures under global warming and ocean acidification

Many physiological responses in present-day coral reefs to climate change are interpreted as consistent with the imminent disappearance of modern reefs globally because of annual mass bleaching events, carbonate dissolution, and insufficient time for substantial evolutionary responses. Emerging evidence for variability in the coral calcification response to acidification, geographical variation in bleaching susceptibility and recovery, responses to past climate change, and potential rates of adaptation to rapid warming supports an alternative scenario in which reef degradation occurs with greater temporal and spatial heterogeneity than current projections suggest. Reducing uncertainty in projecting coral reef futures requires improved understanding of past responses to rapid climate change; physiological responses to interacting factors, such as temperature, acidification, and nutrients; and the costs and constraints imposed by acclimation and adaptation.     

Zonation of uplifted pleistocene coral reefs on barbados, west indies

The coral species composition of uplifted Pleistocene reefs on Barbados is very similar to Recent West Indian reefs. Acropora palmata, Acropora cervicornis, and Montastrea annularis are qtuantitatively the most important of the coral species.     

Detection, pursuit, and overgrowth of tropical gorgonians by milleporid hydrocorals: perseus and medusa revisited

Encounters leading to competitive interactions between colonies on coral reefs are to some extent accidents of patterns of recruitment and growth. In contrast, colonies of Millepora spp. actively detect nearby arborescent gorgonians and subsequently redirect growth in order to contact and overgrow them. Detection is dependent on water flow over the two colonies.     

Insular erosion, isostasy, and subsidence

Organic reefs and shore erosion record the intersection of sea level with islands. From this record it is possible to reconstruct the history of vertical movement of the islands and the adjacent deep sea floor, including midplate swells. As judged by coral thickness, islands with barrier reefs sink as though they were on thermally youthful crust regardless of the actual age. Reefless islands do not sink until truncated by erosion. Apparently, thermal subsidence is balanced by isostatic uplift in response to erosion. Barrier reefs prevent wave erosion of encircled volcanoes and capture products of stream erosion so that isostatic uplift is eliminated. Insular shelves widen initially at rates of 0.6 to 1.7 kilometers per million years; the rates decrease with time. Thus the subsidence of islands depends on the size of the is land and the presence of reefs, and it may not always be the same as that of the surrounding oceanic crust.     

An empirical test of recruitment limitation in a coral reef fish

A long-term, large-scale empirical test of the recruitment limitation hypothesis was done by sampling fish populations from the southern Great Barrier Reef after having monitored their recruitment histories for 9 years. After adjustment for demographic differences, recruitment patterns explained over 90 percent of the spatial variation in abundance of a common damselfish among seven coral reefs. The age structures from individual reefs also preserved major temporal variations in the recruitment signal over at least 10 years. Abundance and demography of this small fish at these spatial and temporal scales can be explained almost entirely as variable recruitment interacting with density-independent mortality.     

Critical depth for the survival of coral islands: effects on the hawaiian archipelago

Coral islands drown when sea level rise exceeds the maximum potential of coral reefs to grow upward (about 10 millimeters per year). During the Holocene transgression (18,000 years ago to present) sea levels rose at rates of up to 10 to 20 millimeters per year, and most coral island reefs situated deeper than a critical depth of30 to 40 meters below present day sea level drowned. Coral islands that did not drown during the Holocene transgression apparently all developed on antecedent foundations shallower than critical depth. During low stands in sea level during the Pleistocene, these islands were elevated and subject to subaerial erosion. Today, in the Hawaiian Archipelago, the depth of drowned banks is inversely related to summit area; smaller banks are progressively deeper, evidently because of erosional truncation during low sea level stands. Bank summit area may therefore be an important factor determining the failure or success of coral islands.     

潜水旅游对珊瑚礁生态系统影响研究的进展

早期潜水活动曾被认为是一种经济价值高且对珊瑚礁影响较小的生态旅游项目,但随着潜水旅游逐渐盛行,诸多研究结果表明,全世界潜水区的珊瑚礁均出现了不同程度的退化,一些热门潜水旅游区每年接纳的游客数量甚至远超出珊瑚礁的生态承受极限.笔者对与珊瑚礁生态系统与潜水旅游承载能力相关的研究结果进行了统计分析,总结了潜水活动影响珊瑚礁的...     

Catastrophes, phase shifts, and large-scale degradation of a Caribbean coral reef

Many coral reefs have been degraded over the past two to three decades through a combination of human and natural disturbances. In Jamaica, the effects of overfishing, hurricane damage, and disease have combined to destroy most corals, whose abundance has declined from more than 50 percent in the late 1970s to less than 5 percent today. A dramatic phase shift has occurred, producing a system dominated by fleshy macroalgae (more than 90 percent cover). Immediate implementation of management procedures is necessary to avoid further catastrophic damage.     

Growth of Western Australian corals in the anthropocene

Anthropogenic increases of atmospheric carbon dioxide lead to warmer sea surface temperatures and altered ocean chemistry. Experimental evidence suggests that coral calcification decreases as aragonite saturation drops but increases as temperatures rise toward thresholds optimal for coral growth. In situ studies have documented alarming recent declines in calcification rates on several tropical coral reef ecosystems. We show there is no widespread pattern of consistent decline in calcification rates of massive Porites during the 20th century on reefs spanning an 11° latitudinal range in the southeast Indian Ocean off Western Australia. Increasing calcification rates on the high-latitude reefs contrast with the downward trajectory reported for corals on Australia's Great Barrier Reef and provide additional evidence that recent changes in coral calcification are responses to temperature rather than ocean acidification.     

Acanthaster: effect on coral reef growth in panama

Analysis of data on coral abundance and growth, and the population size (26 individuals per hectare) and feeding rate of Acanthaster indicates that Pocillopora reefs on the Pacific coast of Panama are undergoing vigorous growth in the presence of this predator. Prediction of the effects of a population increase in Acanthaster to plague proportions (2.5 times that presently observed) suggests that reefs could still maintain a positive growth. However, Acanthaster at ten times the present population density would lead to rapid destruction of reefs. It is argued that coral destruction due to Acanthaster represents only one of several factors affecting coral reef progression.     

Destruction of Pacific Corals by the Sea Star Acanthaster planci

Acanthaster planci, a coral predator, is undergoing a population explosion in many areas of the Pacific Ocean. Data on feeding rates, population movements, and stages of infestation were collected along coral reefs of Guam and Palau. Direct observations on destruction of Guam's coral reefs indicate that narrow, fringing reefs may be killed as rapidly as 1 kilometer per month. In a 2(1/2)-year period, 90 percent of the coral was killed along 38 kilometers of Guam's shoreline.     

Homeward sound

Despite spending weeks at sea as larvae, potentially scattered over many kilometers, young coral reef fish find suitable settlement habitat and in some cases return to their natal reefs. We report that some dominant families of larval reef fish use the sounds made by fish and shrimp resident on reefs to help them locate and settle on reefs and that some fish groups use specific components of the reef sound to guide their behavior. These findings could offer potential for active management of reef fisheries.     

Pleistocene sea levels from raised coral reefs of haiti

The elevations and ages of a sequence of three uplifted Pleistocene coral reefs on the Northwest Peninsula of Haiti have been determined. With the assignment of a sea level of +6 meters (relative to the present day) at 130,000 years before present and constant uplift of the reefs, the data indicate that sea level stood -10 and -13 meters at 108,000 and 81,000 years before present, respectively. These results are in substantial agreement with those reported for Barbados and New Guinea and support the hypothesis of constant uplift for each area. Sea level data from raised reefs indicate that the interglacial marine oxygen isotope oscillations during oxygen isotope stage 5 are a result of 30 percent ice volume effects and 70 percent temperature effects.     

ENSO drove 2500-year collapse of eastern Pacific coral reefs

Cores of coral reef frameworks along an upwelling gradient in Panamá show that reef ecosystems in the tropical eastern Pacific collapsed for 2500 years, representing as much as 40% of their history, beginning about 4000 years ago. The principal cause of this millennial-scale hiatus in reef growth was increased variability of the El Ni?o-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and its coupling with the Intertropical Convergence Zone. The hiatus was a Pacific-wide phenomenon with an underlying climatology similar to probable scenarios for the next century. Global climate change is probably driving eastern Pacific reefs toward another regional collapse.     

Community structure of coral reefs on opposite sides of the isthmus of panama

Competition for space amon reef corals includes interspecific destruction by extracoelenteric digestion., rapid growth. and Overtopping. No Caribbean species excela in all strategies, and on western Caribbean coral reefs there is a positive correlation between coral abudance and diversity. On eastern Pacific coral reefs, however. Pocillopora damicornis excludes other corals, and on these reefs there is an inverse relation between coral abundance and diversity, except in areas where distrubances, such as Acanthaster predation offset space monopolization.     

Coral reefs under rapid climate change and ocean acidification

Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration is expected to exceed 500 parts per million and global temperatures to rise by at least 2 degrees C by 2050 to 2100, values that significantly exceed those of at least the past 420,000 years during which most extant marine organisms evolved. Under conditions expected in the 21st century, global warming and ocean acidification will compromise carbonate accretion, with corals becoming increasingly rare on reef systems. The result will be less diverse reef communities and carbonate reef structures that fail to be maintained. Climate change also exacerbates local stresses from declining water quality and overexploitation of key species, driving reefs increasingly toward the tipping point for functional collapse. This review presents future scenarios for coral reefs that predict increasingly serious consequences for reef-associated fisheries, tourism, coastal protection, and people. As the International Year of the Reef 2008 begins, scaled-up management intervention and decisive action on global emissions are required if the loss of coral-dominated ecosystems is to be avoided.     

Marine ecology. Warmer waters more deadly to coral reefs than pollution

Contrary to conventional wisdom, warmer ocean waters are a greater threat to coral reefs than local environmental insults. That assessment comes from a new scientific report released this week that documents a sudden and steep jump in damage stemming from the 1997-98 El Ni?o-La Ni?a event.