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Journal ArticleDOI

Nearshore coral growth declining on the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System.

TL;DR: It is postulate that the decline in skeletal extension rates for nearshore corals is driven primarily by the combined effects of long-term ocean warming and increasing exposure to higher levels of land-based anthropogenic stressors, with acute thermally induced bleaching events playing a lesser role.
Abstract: Anthropogenic global change and local stressors are impacting coral growth and survival worldwide, altering the structure and function of coral reef ecosystems. Here, we show that skeletal extension rates of nearshore colonies of two abundant and widespread Caribbean corals (Siderastrea siderea, Pseudodiploria strigosa) declined across the Belize Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System (MBRS) over the past century, while offshore coral conspecifics exhibited relatively stable extension rates over the same temporal interval. This decline has caused nearshore coral extension rates to converge with those of their historically slower growing offshore coral counterparts. For both species, individual mass coral bleaching events were correlated with low rates of skeletal extension within specific reef environments, but no single bleaching event was correlated with low skeletal extension rates across all reef environments. We postulate that the decline in skeletal extension rates for nearshore corals is driven primarily by the combined effects of long-term ocean warming and increasing exposure to higher levels of land-based anthropogenic stressors, with acute thermally induced bleaching events playing a lesser role. If these declining trends in skeletal growth of nearshore S. siderea and P. strigosa continue into the future, the structure and function of these critical nearshore MBRS coral reef systems is likely to be severely impaired.
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A systematic review on how cumulative effect assessments have addressed CC in the marine realm investigated at different levels of biological organization ecological responses, functional aspects, and the combined effect of CC and HS suggests that the combined effects ofCC and LS are context-dependent and vary among and within ecosystems.

94 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore how plastic contributes to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the beginning to the end of its life cycle, and show that more extreme weather and floods associated with climate change, will exacerbate the spread of plastic in the natural environment.

76 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper , the authors explore how plastic contributes to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the beginning to the end of its life cycle, and show that more extreme weather and floods associated with climate change, will exacerbate the spread of plastic in the natural environment.

76 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The results indicate that ocean warming and acidification under business-as-usual CO2 emission scenarios will likely extirpate thermally-sensitive coral species before the end of the century, while slowing the recovery of more thermologically-tolerant species from increasingly severe mass coral bleaching and mortality.
Abstract: Despite recent efforts to curtail greenhouse gas emissions, current global emission trajectories are still following the business-as-usual representative concentration pathway (RCP) 8.5 emission pathway. The resulting ocean warming and acidification have transformative impacts on coral reef ecosystems, detrimentally affecting coral physiology and health, and these impacts are predicted to worsen in the near future. In this study, we kept fragments of the symbiotic corals Acropora intermedia (thermally sensitive) and Porites lobata (thermally tolerant) for 7 weeks under an orthogonal design of predicted end-of-century RCP8.5 conditions for temperature and pCO(2) (3.5 degrees C and 570 ppm above present-day, respectively) to unravel how temperature and acidification, individually or interactively, influence metabolic and physiological performance. Our results pinpoint thermal stress as the dominant driver of deteriorating health in both species because of its propensity to destabilize coral-dinoflagellate symbiosis (bleaching). Acidification had no influence on metabolism but had a significant negative effect on skeleton growth, particularly when photosynthesis was absent such as in bleached corals or under dark conditions. Total loss of photosynthesis after bleaching caused an exhaustion of protein and lipid stores and collapse of calcification that ultimately led to A. intermedia mortality. Despite complete loss of symbionts from its tissue, P. lobata maintained small amounts of photosynthesis and experienced a weaker decline in lipid and protein reserves that presumably contributed to higher survival of this species. Our results indicate that ocean warming and acidification under business-as-usual CO2 emission scenarios will likely extirpate thermally sensitive coral species before the end of the century, while slowing the recovery of more thermally tolerant species from increasingly severe mass coral bleaching and mortality. This could ultimately lead to the gradual disappearance of tropical coral reefs globally, and a shift on surviving reefs to only the most resilient coral species.

31 citations


Cites background from "Nearshore coral growth declining on..."

  • ...Worldwide, coral health and growth have already significantly decreased over the last decades, often as a result of climate change (Baumann et al., 2019; Cantin, Cohen, Karnauskas, Tarrant, & McCorkle, 2010; Cooper, De'ath, Fabricius, & Lough, 2008; Mellin et al., 2019; Perry et al., 2015)....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A coral identity approach to assess species turnover is needed to understand and quantify changes in the functionality of coral reefs, and physical functionality increased at a markedly lower rate compared to that of coral cover between 2005 and 2018.
Abstract: The ecology and structure of many tropical coral reefs have been markedly altered over the past few decades. Although long-term recovery has been observed in terms of coral cover, it is not clear how novel species configurations shape reef functionality in impaired reefs. The identities and life-history strategies of the corals species that recover are essential for understanding reef functional dynamics. We used a species identity approach to quantify the physical functionality outcomes over a 13 year period across 56 sites in the Mexican Caribbean. This region was affected by multiple stressors that converged and drastically damaged reefs in the early 2000s. Since then, the reefs have shown evidence of a modest recovery of coral cover. We used Bayesian linear models and annual rates of change to estimate temporal changes in physical functionality and coral cover. Moreover, a functional diversity framework was used to explore changes in coral composition and the traits of those assemblages. Between 2005 and 2018, physical functionality increased at a markedly lower rate compared to that of coral cover. The disparity between recovery rates depended on the identity of the species that increased (mainly non-framework and foliose-digitate corals). No changes in species dominance or functional trait composition were observed, whereas non-framework building corals consistently dominated most reefs. Although the observed recovery of coral cover and functional potential may provide some ecological benefits, the long-term effects on reef frameworks remain unclear, as changes in the cover of key reef-building species were not observed. Our findings are likely to be representative of many reefs across the wider Caribbean basin, as declines in coral cover and rapid increases in the relative abundance of weedy corals have been reported regionally. A coral identity approach to assess species turnover is needed to understand and quantify changes in the functionality of coral reefs.

28 citations


Cites background from "Nearshore coral growth declining on..."

  • ...…Dendrogyra cylindrus, Siderastrea siderea, and Pseudodiploria strigosa) have reduced calcification rates due to increases in ocean temperature, ocean acidification, and anthropogenic pressures (Baumann et al., 2019; Carricart-Ganivet et al., 2012; Castillo et al., 2011; Cruz-Ortega et al., 2020)....

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References
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Journal Article
TL;DR: Copyright (©) 1999–2012 R Foundation for Statistical Computing; permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this manual provided the copyright notice and permission notice are preserved on all copies.
Abstract: Copyright (©) 1999–2012 R Foundation for Statistical Computing. Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies. Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a permission notice identical to this one. Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this manual into another language, under the above conditions for modified versions, except that this permission notice may be stated in a translation approved by the R Core Team.

272,030 citations


"Nearshore coral growth declining on..." refers methods in this paper

  • ...Cores were extracted parallel to the central growth axis of each colony....

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  • ...Cores collected in 2009 and 2012 were scanned with the growth axis oriented perpendicular to the length of the CT table....

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  • ...Cores were rinsed in ethanol, stored in polyvinyl chloride tubes, and transported to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for analysis....

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  • ...Coral Reefs, 27, 727–742. https ://doi.org/10.1007/s00338‐008‐0413‐4 R Core Team....

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  • ...Statistical analyses were carried out using the nlme package (Pinheiro et al., 2017) in R (R Core Team, 2017)....

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Book
19 Jun 2013
TL;DR: The second edition of this book is unique in that it focuses on methods for making formal statistical inference from all the models in an a priori set (Multi-Model Inference).
Abstract: Introduction * Information and Likelihood Theory: A Basis for Model Selection and Inference * Basic Use of the Information-Theoretic Approach * Formal Inference From More Than One Model: Multi-Model Inference (MMI) * Monte Carlo Insights and Extended Examples * Statistical Theory and Numerical Results * Summary

36,993 citations


"Nearshore coral growth declining on..." refers background or methods in this paper

  • ...A model testing pro‐ cedure was employed for each species (Table S2; Supplementary Methods) and Akaike information criterion (AIC) was used to iden‐ tify the best‐fit model (Burnham & Anderson, 2002)....

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  • ...AIC provides a measure of the explanatory power of a model discounted by the number of parameters that contributed to its construction; a lower value indicates a better fitting model (Burnham & Anderson, 2002)....

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Journal ArticleDOI
28 Mar 2002-Nature
TL;DR: A review of the ecological impacts of recent climate change exposes a coherent pattern of ecological change across systems, from polar terrestrial to tropical marine environments.
Abstract: There is now ample evidence of the ecological impacts of recent climate change, from polar terrestrial to tropical marine environments. The responses of both flora and fauna span an array of ecosystems and organizational hierarchies, from the species to the community levels. Despite continued uncertainty as to community and ecosystem trajectories under global change, our review exposes a coherent pattern of ecological change across systems. Although we are only at an early stage in the projected trends of global warming, ecological responses to recent climate change are already clearly visible.

9,369 citations


"Nearshore coral growth declining on..." refers background in this paper

  • ...Global climate change is impacting ecosystems worldwide (Walther et al., 2002), causing range expansions (Elmhagen, Kindberg, Hellström, & Angerbjörn, 2015), habitat contractions (Smale & Wernberg, 2013), decreased productivity (O'Reilly, Alin, Plisnier, Cohen, & McKee, 2003), pest outbreaks (Kurz…...

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Journal ArticleDOI
14 Dec 2007-Science
TL;DR: 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.
Abstract: 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.

4,422 citations