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Cold water and harmful algal blooms linked to coral reef collapse in the Eastern Tropical Pacific

BACKGROUND: With conventional coral reef conservation methods proving ineffective against intensifying climate change, efforts have focussed on augmenting coral tolerance to warmer water—the primary driver of coral declines. We document coral cover and composition in relation to sea surface temperat...

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Autores principales: Palmer, Caroline, Jimenez, Carlos, Bassey, Giovanni, Ruiz, Eleazar, Villalobos Cubero, Tatiana, Chavarria Diaz, Maria Marta, Harrison, Xavier A., Puschendorf, Robert
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: PeerJ Inc. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9526400/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36193424
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.14081
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author Palmer, Caroline
Jimenez, Carlos
Bassey, Giovanni
Ruiz, Eleazar
Villalobos Cubero, Tatiana
Chavarria Diaz, Maria Marta
Harrison, Xavier A.
Puschendorf, Robert
author_facet Palmer, Caroline
Jimenez, Carlos
Bassey, Giovanni
Ruiz, Eleazar
Villalobos Cubero, Tatiana
Chavarria Diaz, Maria Marta
Harrison, Xavier A.
Puschendorf, Robert
author_sort Palmer, Caroline
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: With conventional coral reef conservation methods proving ineffective against intensifying climate change, efforts have focussed on augmenting coral tolerance to warmer water—the primary driver of coral declines. We document coral cover and composition in relation to sea surface temperature (SST) over 25-years, of six marginal reefs in an upwelling area of Costa Rica’s Eastern Tropical Pacific. METHODS: Using reef survey data and sea surface temperature (SST) dating back over 25-years, we document coral cover and composition of six marginal reefs in an upwelling area of Costa Rica’s Eastern Tropical Pacific in relation to thermal highs and lows. RESULTS. A ubiquitous and catastrophic coral die-off event occurred in 2009, driven by SST minima and likely by the presence of extreme harmful algal blooms. Coral cover was dramatically reduced and coral composition shifted from dominant branching Pocillopora to massive Pavona, Porites, and Gardineroseris. The lack of coral recovery in the decade since indicates a breach in ecosystem tipping-point and highlights a need for resilience-based management (RBM) and restoration. We propose a locally tailored and globally scalable approach to coral reef declines that is founded in RBM and informed by coral health dynamics.
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spelling pubmed-95264002022-10-02 Cold water and harmful algal blooms linked to coral reef collapse in the Eastern Tropical Pacific Palmer, Caroline Jimenez, Carlos Bassey, Giovanni Ruiz, Eleazar Villalobos Cubero, Tatiana Chavarria Diaz, Maria Marta Harrison, Xavier A. Puschendorf, Robert PeerJ Conservation Biology BACKGROUND: With conventional coral reef conservation methods proving ineffective against intensifying climate change, efforts have focussed on augmenting coral tolerance to warmer water—the primary driver of coral declines. We document coral cover and composition in relation to sea surface temperature (SST) over 25-years, of six marginal reefs in an upwelling area of Costa Rica’s Eastern Tropical Pacific. METHODS: Using reef survey data and sea surface temperature (SST) dating back over 25-years, we document coral cover and composition of six marginal reefs in an upwelling area of Costa Rica’s Eastern Tropical Pacific in relation to thermal highs and lows. RESULTS. A ubiquitous and catastrophic coral die-off event occurred in 2009, driven by SST minima and likely by the presence of extreme harmful algal blooms. Coral cover was dramatically reduced and coral composition shifted from dominant branching Pocillopora to massive Pavona, Porites, and Gardineroseris. The lack of coral recovery in the decade since indicates a breach in ecosystem tipping-point and highlights a need for resilience-based management (RBM) and restoration. We propose a locally tailored and globally scalable approach to coral reef declines that is founded in RBM and informed by coral health dynamics. PeerJ Inc. 2022-09-28 /pmc/articles/PMC9526400/ /pubmed/36193424 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.14081 Text en © 2022 Palmer 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 Conservation Biology
Palmer, Caroline
Jimenez, Carlos
Bassey, Giovanni
Ruiz, Eleazar
Villalobos Cubero, Tatiana
Chavarria Diaz, Maria Marta
Harrison, Xavier A.
Puschendorf, Robert
Cold water and harmful algal blooms linked to coral reef collapse in the Eastern Tropical Pacific
title Cold water and harmful algal blooms linked to coral reef collapse in the Eastern Tropical Pacific
title_full Cold water and harmful algal blooms linked to coral reef collapse in the Eastern Tropical Pacific
title_fullStr Cold water and harmful algal blooms linked to coral reef collapse in the Eastern Tropical Pacific
title_full_unstemmed Cold water and harmful algal blooms linked to coral reef collapse in the Eastern Tropical Pacific
title_short Cold water and harmful algal blooms linked to coral reef collapse in the Eastern Tropical Pacific
title_sort cold water and harmful algal blooms linked to coral reef collapse in the eastern tropical pacific
topic Conservation Biology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9526400/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36193424
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.14081
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