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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...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group UK
2023
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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 |
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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 |
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