Cargando…

Moderate chlorophyll-a environments reduce coral bleaching during thermal stress in Yap, Micronesia

Thermal-stress events on coral reefs lead to coral bleaching, mortality, and changes in species composition. The coral reefs of Yap, in the Federated States of Micronesia, however, remained largely unaffected by major thermal-stress events until 2020, when temperatures were elevated for three months...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Keighan, Rachael, van Woesik, Robert, Yalon, Anthony, Nam, Joe, Houk, Peter
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10250426/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37291208
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-36355-2
_version_ 1785055751998275584
author Keighan, Rachael
van Woesik, Robert
Yalon, Anthony
Nam, Joe
Houk, Peter
author_facet Keighan, Rachael
van Woesik, Robert
Yalon, Anthony
Nam, Joe
Houk, Peter
author_sort Keighan, Rachael
collection PubMed
description Thermal-stress events on coral reefs lead to coral bleaching, mortality, and changes in species composition. The coral reefs of Yap, in the Federated States of Micronesia, however, remained largely unaffected by major thermal-stress events until 2020, when temperatures were elevated for three months. Twenty-nine study sites were examined around Yap to determine geographical and taxonomic patterns of coral abundance, bleaching susceptibility, and environmental predictors of bleaching susceptibility. Island-wide, 21% (± 14%) of the coral cover was bleached in 2020. Although inner reefs had a greater proportion of thermally-tolerant Porites corals, the prevalence of bleaching was consistently lower on inner reefs (10%) than on outer reefs (31%) for all coral taxa. Corals on both inner and outer reefs along the southwestern coast exhibited the lowest prevalence of coral bleaching and had consistently elevated chlorophyll-a concentrations. More broadly, we revealed a negative relationship between bleaching prevalence and (moderate) chlorophyll-a concentrations that may have facilitated resistance to thermal stress by reducing irradiance and providing a heterotrophic energy source to benefit some corals exposed to autotrophic stress. Southwestern reefs also supported a high but declining fish biomass, making these bleaching-resistant and productive reefs a potential climate-change refuge and a prime target for conservation.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-10250426
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2023
publisher Nature Publishing Group UK
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-102504262023-06-10 Moderate chlorophyll-a environments reduce coral bleaching during thermal stress in Yap, Micronesia Keighan, Rachael van Woesik, Robert Yalon, Anthony Nam, Joe Houk, Peter Sci Rep Article Thermal-stress events on coral reefs lead to coral bleaching, mortality, and changes in species composition. The coral reefs of Yap, in the Federated States of Micronesia, however, remained largely unaffected by major thermal-stress events until 2020, when temperatures were elevated for three months. Twenty-nine study sites were examined around Yap to determine geographical and taxonomic patterns of coral abundance, bleaching susceptibility, and environmental predictors of bleaching susceptibility. Island-wide, 21% (± 14%) of the coral cover was bleached in 2020. Although inner reefs had a greater proportion of thermally-tolerant Porites corals, the prevalence of bleaching was consistently lower on inner reefs (10%) than on outer reefs (31%) for all coral taxa. Corals on both inner and outer reefs along the southwestern coast exhibited the lowest prevalence of coral bleaching and had consistently elevated chlorophyll-a concentrations. More broadly, we revealed a negative relationship between bleaching prevalence and (moderate) chlorophyll-a concentrations that may have facilitated resistance to thermal stress by reducing irradiance and providing a heterotrophic energy source to benefit some corals exposed to autotrophic stress. Southwestern reefs also supported a high but declining fish biomass, making these bleaching-resistant and productive reefs a potential climate-change refuge and a prime target for conservation. Nature Publishing Group UK 2023-06-08 /pmc/articles/PMC10250426/ /pubmed/37291208 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-36355-2 Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Article
Keighan, Rachael
van Woesik, Robert
Yalon, Anthony
Nam, Joe
Houk, Peter
Moderate chlorophyll-a environments reduce coral bleaching during thermal stress in Yap, Micronesia
title Moderate chlorophyll-a environments reduce coral bleaching during thermal stress in Yap, Micronesia
title_full Moderate chlorophyll-a environments reduce coral bleaching during thermal stress in Yap, Micronesia
title_fullStr Moderate chlorophyll-a environments reduce coral bleaching during thermal stress in Yap, Micronesia
title_full_unstemmed Moderate chlorophyll-a environments reduce coral bleaching during thermal stress in Yap, Micronesia
title_short Moderate chlorophyll-a environments reduce coral bleaching during thermal stress in Yap, Micronesia
title_sort moderate chlorophyll-a environments reduce coral bleaching during thermal stress in yap, micronesia
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10250426/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37291208
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-36355-2
work_keys_str_mv AT keighanrachael moderatechlorophyllaenvironmentsreducecoralbleachingduringthermalstressinyapmicronesia
AT vanwoesikrobert moderatechlorophyllaenvironmentsreducecoralbleachingduringthermalstressinyapmicronesia
AT yalonanthony moderatechlorophyllaenvironmentsreducecoralbleachingduringthermalstressinyapmicronesia
AT namjoe moderatechlorophyllaenvironmentsreducecoralbleachingduringthermalstressinyapmicronesia
AT houkpeter moderatechlorophyllaenvironmentsreducecoralbleachingduringthermalstressinyapmicronesia