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Impacts of heat stress and storm events on the benthic communities of Kenting National Park (Taiwan)

Over the past few decades, extreme events—such as ocean warming, typhoons, and coral bleaching—have been increasing in intensity and frequency, threatening coral reefs from the physiological to ecosystem level. In the present study, the impacts of rising seawater temperatures, typhoons, and coral bl...

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Autores principales: Ribas-Deulofeu, Lauriane, Denis, Vianney, Château, Pierre-Alexandre, Chen, Chaolun Allen
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: PeerJ Inc. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8312492/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34386301
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.11744
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author Ribas-Deulofeu, Lauriane
Denis, Vianney
Château, Pierre-Alexandre
Chen, Chaolun Allen
author_facet Ribas-Deulofeu, Lauriane
Denis, Vianney
Château, Pierre-Alexandre
Chen, Chaolun Allen
author_sort Ribas-Deulofeu, Lauriane
collection PubMed
description Over the past few decades, extreme events—such as ocean warming, typhoons, and coral bleaching—have been increasing in intensity and frequency, threatening coral reefs from the physiological to ecosystem level. In the present study, the impacts of rising seawater temperatures, typhoons, and coral bleaching events on benthic communities were seasonally assessed over a 21 month-period, using photo-transects at 11 sites in Kenting National Park (KNP), Taiwan. Between August 2015 and April 2017, seven typhoon events were recorded and in situ seawater temperatures in KNP reached a maximum of 31.2 °C, as opposed to an average maximum SST of 28.8 °C (2007–2016). The state and response of benthic communities to these events were interpreted based on the environmental conditions of KNP. The repeated storms lowered the levels of thermal stress during the 2015–2016 El Niño event and may have mitigated its impact on the Taiwanese coral reefs. However, storm-induced local shifts from coral to macro-algae dominance were observed. Storms may mitigate the negative effects of heatwaves, but the mechanical damage induced by the storms may also decrease the structural complexity of reefs and their associated diversity. Eventually, despite reef persistence, the composition and function of remnant communities may profoundly diverge from those in regions with less active storms.
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spelling pubmed-83124922021-08-11 Impacts of heat stress and storm events on the benthic communities of Kenting National Park (Taiwan) Ribas-Deulofeu, Lauriane Denis, Vianney Château, Pierre-Alexandre Chen, Chaolun Allen PeerJ Biodiversity Over the past few decades, extreme events—such as ocean warming, typhoons, and coral bleaching—have been increasing in intensity and frequency, threatening coral reefs from the physiological to ecosystem level. In the present study, the impacts of rising seawater temperatures, typhoons, and coral bleaching events on benthic communities were seasonally assessed over a 21 month-period, using photo-transects at 11 sites in Kenting National Park (KNP), Taiwan. Between August 2015 and April 2017, seven typhoon events were recorded and in situ seawater temperatures in KNP reached a maximum of 31.2 °C, as opposed to an average maximum SST of 28.8 °C (2007–2016). The state and response of benthic communities to these events were interpreted based on the environmental conditions of KNP. The repeated storms lowered the levels of thermal stress during the 2015–2016 El Niño event and may have mitigated its impact on the Taiwanese coral reefs. However, storm-induced local shifts from coral to macro-algae dominance were observed. Storms may mitigate the negative effects of heatwaves, but the mechanical damage induced by the storms may also decrease the structural complexity of reefs and their associated diversity. Eventually, despite reef persistence, the composition and function of remnant communities may profoundly diverge from those in regions with less active storms. PeerJ Inc. 2021-07-23 /pmc/articles/PMC8312492/ /pubmed/34386301 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.11744 Text en ©2021 Ribas-Deulofeu et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
spellingShingle Biodiversity
Ribas-Deulofeu, Lauriane
Denis, Vianney
Château, Pierre-Alexandre
Chen, Chaolun Allen
Impacts of heat stress and storm events on the benthic communities of Kenting National Park (Taiwan)
title Impacts of heat stress and storm events on the benthic communities of Kenting National Park (Taiwan)
title_full Impacts of heat stress and storm events on the benthic communities of Kenting National Park (Taiwan)
title_fullStr Impacts of heat stress and storm events on the benthic communities of Kenting National Park (Taiwan)
title_full_unstemmed Impacts of heat stress and storm events on the benthic communities of Kenting National Park (Taiwan)
title_short Impacts of heat stress and storm events on the benthic communities of Kenting National Park (Taiwan)
title_sort impacts of heat stress and storm events on the benthic communities of kenting national park (taiwan)
topic Biodiversity
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8312492/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34386301
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.11744
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