Journal ArticleDOI
Coral reef bleaching: ecological perspectives
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An effort must be made to understand the impact of bleaching on the remainder of the reef community and the long-term effects on competition, predation, symbioses, bioerosion and substrate condition, all factors that can influence coral recruitment and reef recovery.Abstract:
Coral reef bleaching, the whitening of diverse invertebrate taxa, results from the loss of symbiotic zooxanthellae and/or a reduction in photosynthetic pigment concentrations in zooxanthellae residing within the gastrodermal tissues of host animals. Of particular concern are the consequences of bleaching of large numbers of reef-building scleractinian corals and hydrocorals. Published records of coral reef bleaching events from 1870 to the present suggest that the frequency (60 major events from 1979 to 1990), scale (co-occurrence in many coral reef regions and often over the bathymetric depth range of corals) and severity (>95% mortality in some areas) of recent bleaching disturbances are unprecedented in the scientific literature. The causes of small scale, isolated bleaching events can often be explained by particular stressors (e.g., temperature, salinity, light, sedimentation, aerial exposure and pollutants), but attempts to explain large scale bleaching events in terms of possible global change (e.g., greenhouse warming, increased UV radiation flux, deteriorating ecosystem health, or some combination of the above) have not been convincing. Attempts to relate the severity and extent of large scale coral reef bleaching events to particular causes have been hampered by a lack of (a) standardized methods to assess bleaching and (b) continuous, long-term data bases of environmental conditions over the periods of interest. An effort must be made to understand the impact of bleaching on the remainder of the reef community and the long-term effects on competition, predation, symbioses, bioerosion and substrate condition, all factors that can influence coral recruitment and reef recovery. If projected rates of sea warming are realized by mid to late AD 2000, i.e. a 2°C increase in high latitude coral seas, the upper thermal tolerance limits of many reef-building corals could be exceeded. Present evidence suggests that many corals would be unable to adapt physiologically or genetically to such marked and rapid temperature increases.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
Climate Change, Human Impacts, and the Resilience of Coral Reefs
Terry P. Hughes,Andrew H. Baird,David R. Bellwood,M. Card,Sean R. Connolly,Carl Folke,Richard K. Grosberg,Ove Hoegh-Guldberg,Jeremy B. C. Jackson,Jeremy B. C. Jackson,Joan A. Kleypas,Janice M. Lough,Paul Marshall,Magnus Nyström,Stephen R. Palumbi,John M. Pandolfi,Brian R. Rosen,Jonathan Roughgarden +17 more
TL;DR: International integration of management strategies that support reef resilience need to be vigorously implemented, and complemented by strong policy decisions to reduce the rate of global warming.
Journal ArticleDOI
Climate change, coral bleaching and the future of the world's coral reefs
TL;DR: The results suggest that the thermal tolerances of reef-building corals are likely to be exceeded every year within the next few decades, and suggests that unrestrained warming cannot occur without the loss and degradation of coral reefs on a global scale.
Journal ArticleDOI
Coral bleaching: causes and consequences
TL;DR: Evaluated data on temperature and irradiance-induced bleaching, including long-term data sets which suggest that repeated bleaching events may be the consequence of a steadily rising background sea temperature that will in the future expose corals to an increasingly hostile environment, are evaluated.
Journal ArticleDOI
Spatial and temporal patterns of mass bleaching of corals in the Anthropocene.
Terry P. Hughes,Kristen G. Anderson,Sean R. Connolly,Scott F. Heron,Scott F. Heron,James T. Kerry,Janice M. Lough,Janice M. Lough,Andrew H. Baird,Julia K. Baum,Michael L. Berumen,Tom C. L. Bridge,Tom C. L. Bridge,Danielle C. Claar,C. Mark Eakin,James P. Gilmour,Nicholas A. J. Graham,Nicholas A. J. Graham,Hugo B. Harrison,Jean-Paul A. Hobbs,Andrew S. Hoey,Mia O. Hoogenboom,Ryan J. Lowe,Malcolm T. McCulloch,John M. Pandolfi,Morgan S. Pratchett,Verena Schoepf,Gergely Torda,Gergely Torda,Shaun K. Wilson +29 more
TL;DR: Coral reefs in the present day have less time than in earlier periods to recover from bleaching events, and Tropical reef systems are transitioning to a new era in which the interval between recurrent bouts of coral bleaching is too short for a full recovery of mature assemblages.
Journal ArticleDOI
Coral bleaching: the winners and the losers
TL;DR: A community-structural shift occurred on Okinawan reefs, resulting in an increase in the relative abundance of massive and encrusting coral species, and two hypotheses whose synergistic effect may partially explain observed mortality patterns are suggested.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
Mitotic index and size of symbiotic algae in Caribbean Reef corals
TL;DR: Size and frequency of division were determined for zooxanthellae from nine scleractinian coral species collected in February, 1983 at Discovery Bay, Jamaica, from four depths over a 51 m bathymetric range.
Journal ArticleDOI
Control of bleaching in mushroom coral populations (Scleractinia: Fungiidae) in the Java Sea: stress tolerance and interference by life history strategy
TL;DR: Bleaching was studied in populations of phylogenetically closely related species of mushroom corals (Scleractinia: Fungiidae) around Pari Island (Java Sea) during a period of excessive seawater warming in 1983.
Studies on the physiology of corals: iv. the structure, distribution and physiology of the zooxanthellae
C. M. Yonge,A G Nicholls +1 more
Journal ArticleDOI
Changes in pigmentation associated with the bleaching of stony corals
TL;DR: Changes in pigmentation and the processes that caused them were studied in Montastrea annularis during a natural bleaching event off southeast Florida, which contributed to bleaching and reduced carotenoid levels.
Journal ArticleDOI
Genetical structure within populations of the coral Pocillopora damicornis
TL;DR: Genetic variation of allozymes within populations of Pocillopora damicornis from southwestern Australia was consistent with a primary role of local asexual proliferation of clones in population maintenance and the existence of a sexual mode of reproduction was inferred.
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