Dataset Information

Caribbean corals in crisis: record thermal stress, bleaching, and mortality in 2005.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The rising temperature of the world's oceans has become a major threat to coral reefs globally as the severity and frequency of mass coral bleaching and mortality events increase. In 2005, high ocean temperatures in the tropical Atlantic and Caribbean resulted in the most severe bleaching event ever recorded in the basin.

Methodology/principal findings

Satellite-based tools provided warnings for coral reef managers and scientists, guiding both the timing and location of researchers' field observations as anomalously warm conditions developed and spread across the greater Caribbean region from June to October 2005. Field surveys of bleaching and mortality exceeded prior efforts in detail and extent, and provided a new standard for documenting the effects of bleaching and for testing nowcast and forecast products. Collaborators from 22 countries undertook the most comprehensive documentation of basin-scale bleaching to date and found that over 80% of corals bleached and over 40% died at many sites. The most severe bleaching coincided with waters nearest a western Atlantic warm pool that was centered off the northern end of the Lesser Antilles.

Conclusions/significance

Thermal stress during the 2005 event exceeded any observed from the Caribbean in the prior 20 years, and regionally-averaged temperatures were the warmest in over 150 years. Comparison of satellite data against field surveys demonstrated a significant predictive relationship between accumulated heat stress (measured using NOAA Coral Reef Watch's Degree Heating Weeks) and bleaching intensity. This severe, widespread bleaching and mortality will undoubtedly have long-term consequences for reef ecosystems and suggests a troubled future for tropical marine ecosystems under a warming climate.

SUBMITTER: Eakin CM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2981599 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Caribbean corals in crisis: record thermal stress, bleaching, and mortality in 2005.

Eakin C Mark CM Morgan Jessica A JA Heron Scott F SF Smith Tyler B TB Liu Gang G Alvarez-Filip Lorenzo L Baca Bart B Bartels Erich E Bastidas Carolina C Bouchon Claude C Brandt Marilyn M Bruckner Andrew W AW Bunkley-Williams Lucy L Cameron Andrew A Causey Billy D BD Chiappone Mark M Christensen Tyler R L TR Crabbe M James C MJ Day Owen O de la Guardia Elena E Díaz-Pulido Guillermo G DiResta Daniel D Gil-Agudelo Diego L DL Gilliam David S DS Ginsburg Robert N RN Gore Shannon S Guzmán Héctor M HM Hendee James C JC Hernández-Delgado Edwin A EA Husain Ellen E Jeffrey Christopher F G CF Jones Ross J RJ Jordán-Dahlgren Eric E Kaufman Les S LS Kline David I DI Kramer Philip A PA Lang Judith C JC Lirman Diego D Mallela Jennie J Manfrino Carrie C Maréchal Jean-Philippe JP Marks Ken K Mihaly Jennifer J Miller W Jeff WJ Mueller Erich M EM Muller Erinn M EM Orozco Toro Carlos A CA Oxenford Hazel A HA Ponce-Taylor Daniel D Quinn Norman N Ritchie Kim B KB Rodríguez Sebastián S Ramírez Alberto Rodríguez AR Romano Sandra S Samhouri Jameal F JF Sánchez Juan A JA Schmahl George P GP Shank Burton V BV Skirving William J WJ Steiner Sascha C C SC Villamizar Estrella E Walsh Sheila M SM Walter Cory C Weil Ernesto E Williams Ernest H EH Roberson Kimberly Woody KW Yusuf Yusri Y

PloS one 20101115 11

<h4>Background</h4>The rising temperature of the world's oceans has become a major threat to coral reefs globally as the severity and frequency of mass coral bleaching and mortality events increase. In 2005, high ocean temperatures in the tropical Atlantic and Caribbean resulted in the most severe bleaching event ever recorded in the basin.<h4>Methodology/principal findings</h4>Satellite-based tools provided warnings for coral reef managers and scientists, guiding both the timing and location of ...[more]

PMID: 21125021

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Project description:In 2016, global temperatures were the highest on record, and mass coral bleaching occurred world-wide. However, around Sesoko Island, Okinawa, southwestern Japan, the heat stress assessed by degree heating week (DHW) based on local temperature measurements was moderate in 2016; in 1998, DHW was three times higher than in 2016 (10.6 vs. 3.3 in September in respective years). On a reef flat of Sesoko Island where the effect of severe coral bleaching on coral assemblage was monitored in 1998, significant coral bleaching occurred in 2016. Bleaching of the heat stress sensitive Acropora corals began in July 2016 on the reef flat as seawater temperature rose. We observed the bleaching and post-bleaching mortality status of individual colonies of Acropora spp. in 2016 in fixed plots on the reef flat. In total, 123 Acropora colonies were followed for six months after seawater temperature became normal by multiple surveys. At the beginning of September 2016, 99.2% of colonies, were either completely (92.7%) or partially (6.5%) bleached. Of those, the dominant species or species groups were A. gemmifera (Ag), A. digitifera (Ad), and tabular Acropora (tA). For all Acropora colonies, the overall whole and partial mortality was 41.5% and 11.4%, respectively. Whole mortality rate differed significantly among species; 72.5%, 17.9%, and 27.8% in Ag, Ad, and tA, respectively. Mortality rates at the end of the surveys were similar in smaller (?10 cm in diameter) and larger Ag, but the former suffered mortality earlier than the latter. Higher survival of smaller colonies was observed only in tA (100%), which may be associated with large morphological differences between smaller and larger colonies. Some of the dominant Acropora colonies had survived without partial mortality including 15.0% survival of the most vulnerable Ag at the end of the surveys. These results suggest that moderate heat stress may have a potential for selecting heat-tolerant genotypes. A longer period of mortality lasting for six months, was observed in Ag in addition to immediate whole mortality after bleaching, due to the continuous loss of living tissue by partial mortality. This highlights the need for multiple surveys at least during several months to accurately assess the impact of thermal stress event to corals. In contrast to DHW based on local measurements, DHW obtained from satellite data were similar between 1998 and 2016. Although satellite-based measurement of sea surface temperature is very useful to reveal variations in heat stress at a large spatial scale, temperature should be measured on site when variations at smaller spatial scales are of interest.

Project description:Variation among functionally similar species in their response to environmental stress buffers ecosystems from changing states. Functionally similar species may often be cryptic species representing evolutionarily distinct genetic lineages that are morphologically indistinguishable. However, the extent to which cryptic species differ in their response to stress, and could therefore provide a source of response diversity, remains unclear because they are often not identified or are assumed to be ecologically equivalent. Here, we uncover differences in the bleaching response between sympatric cryptic species of the common Indo-Pacific coral, Pocillopora. In April 2019, prolonged ocean heating occurred at Moorea, French Polynesia. 72% of pocilloporid colonies bleached after 22 d of severe heating (>8o C-days) at 10 m depth on the north shore fore reef. Colony mortality ranged from 11% to 42% around the island four months after heating subsided. The majority (86%) of pocilloporids that died from bleaching belonged to a single haplotype, despite twelve haplotypes, representing at least five species, being sampled. Mitochondrial (open reading frame) sequence variation was greater between the haplotypes that experienced mortality versus haplotypes that all survived than it was between nominal species that all survived. Colonies > 30 cm in diameter were identified as the haplotype experiencing the most mortality, and in 1125 colonies that were not genetically identified, bleaching and mortality increased with colony size. Mortality did not increase with colony size within the haplotype suffering the highest mortality, suggesting that size-dependent bleaching and mortality at the genus level was caused instead by differences among cryptic species. The relative abundance of haplotypes shifted between February and August, driven by declines in the same common haplotype for which mortality was estimated directly, at sites where heat accumulation was greatest, and where larger colony sizes occurred. The identification of morphologically indistinguishable species that differ in their response to thermal stress, but share a similar ecological function in terms of maintaining a coral-dominated state, has important consequences for uncovering response diversity that drives resilience, especially in systems with low or declining functional diversity.

Dataset Information

Caribbean corals in crisis: record thermal stress, bleaching, and mortality in 2005.

Background

Methodology/principal findings

Conclusions/significance

Publications

Caribbean corals in crisis: record thermal stress, bleaching, and mortality in 2005.

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