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Episodic Disturbance from Boat Anchoring Is a Major Contributor to, but Does Not Alter the Trajectory of, Long-Term Coral Reef Decline
Isolating the relative effects of episodic disturbances and chronic stressors on long-term community change is challenging. We assessed the impact of an episodic disturbance associated with human visitation (boat anchoring) relative to other drivers of long-term change on coral reefs. A one-time anc...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2015
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4696730/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26717208 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0144498 |
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author | Forrester, Graham E. Flynn, Rebecca L. Forrester, Linda M. Jarecki, Lianna L. |
author_facet | Forrester, Graham E. Flynn, Rebecca L. Forrester, Linda M. Jarecki, Lianna L. |
author_sort | Forrester, Graham E. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Isolating the relative effects of episodic disturbances and chronic stressors on long-term community change is challenging. We assessed the impact of an episodic disturbance associated with human visitation (boat anchoring) relative to other drivers of long-term change on coral reefs. A one-time anchoring event at Crab Cove, British Virgin Islands, in 2004 caused rapid losses of coral and reef structural complexity that were equal to the cumulative decline over 23 years observed at an adjacent site. The abundance of small site-attached reef fishes dropped by approximately one quarter after the anchoring event, but this drop was not immediate and only fully apparent two years after the anchoring event. There was no obvious recovery from the impact, and no evidence that this episodic impact accelerated or retarded subsequent declines from other causes. This apparent lack of synergism between the effect of this episodic human impact and other chronic stressors is consistent with the few other long-term studies of episodic impacts, and suggests that action to mitigate anchor damage should yield predictable benefits. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4696730 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2015 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-46967302016-01-13 Episodic Disturbance from Boat Anchoring Is a Major Contributor to, but Does Not Alter the Trajectory of, Long-Term Coral Reef Decline Forrester, Graham E. Flynn, Rebecca L. Forrester, Linda M. Jarecki, Lianna L. PLoS One Research Article Isolating the relative effects of episodic disturbances and chronic stressors on long-term community change is challenging. We assessed the impact of an episodic disturbance associated with human visitation (boat anchoring) relative to other drivers of long-term change on coral reefs. A one-time anchoring event at Crab Cove, British Virgin Islands, in 2004 caused rapid losses of coral and reef structural complexity that were equal to the cumulative decline over 23 years observed at an adjacent site. The abundance of small site-attached reef fishes dropped by approximately one quarter after the anchoring event, but this drop was not immediate and only fully apparent two years after the anchoring event. There was no obvious recovery from the impact, and no evidence that this episodic impact accelerated or retarded subsequent declines from other causes. This apparent lack of synergism between the effect of this episodic human impact and other chronic stressors is consistent with the few other long-term studies of episodic impacts, and suggests that action to mitigate anchor damage should yield predictable benefits. Public Library of Science 2015-12-30 /pmc/articles/PMC4696730/ /pubmed/26717208 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0144498 Text en © 2015 Forrester et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Forrester, Graham E. Flynn, Rebecca L. Forrester, Linda M. Jarecki, Lianna L. Episodic Disturbance from Boat Anchoring Is a Major Contributor to, but Does Not Alter the Trajectory of, Long-Term Coral Reef Decline |
title | Episodic Disturbance from Boat Anchoring Is a Major Contributor to, but Does Not Alter the Trajectory of, Long-Term Coral Reef Decline |
title_full | Episodic Disturbance from Boat Anchoring Is a Major Contributor to, but Does Not Alter the Trajectory of, Long-Term Coral Reef Decline |
title_fullStr | Episodic Disturbance from Boat Anchoring Is a Major Contributor to, but Does Not Alter the Trajectory of, Long-Term Coral Reef Decline |
title_full_unstemmed | Episodic Disturbance from Boat Anchoring Is a Major Contributor to, but Does Not Alter the Trajectory of, Long-Term Coral Reef Decline |
title_short | Episodic Disturbance from Boat Anchoring Is a Major Contributor to, but Does Not Alter the Trajectory of, Long-Term Coral Reef Decline |
title_sort | episodic disturbance from boat anchoring is a major contributor to, but does not alter the trajectory of, long-term coral reef decline |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4696730/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26717208 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0144498 |
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