Dataset Information

Carbonate production of Micronesian reefs suppressed by thermal anomalies and Acanthaster as sea-level rises.

ABSTRACT: Coral reefs are essential to millions of island inhabitants. Yet, coral reefs are threatened by thermal anomalies associated with climate change and by local disturbances that include land-use change, pollution, and the coral-eating sea star Acanthaster solaris. In combination, these disturbances cause coral mortality that reduce the capacity of reefs to produce enough carbonate to keep up with sea-level rise. This study compared the reef-building capacity of shallow-water inner, patch, and outer reefs in the two islands of Pohnpei and Kosrae, Federated States of Micronesia. We identified which reefs were likely to keep up with sea-level rise under different climate-change scenarios, and estimated whether there were differences across habitats in the threshold of percentage coral cover at which net carbonate production becomes negative. We also quantified the influence of A. solaris on carbonate production. Whereas the northwestern outer reefs of Pohnpei and Kosrae had the highest net rates of carbonate production (18.5 and 16.4 kg CaCO3 m-2 yr-1, respectively), the southeastern outer reefs had the lowest rates of carbonate production (1.2-1.3 and 0.7 kg CaCO3 m-2 yr-1, respectively). The patch reefs of Pohnpei had on average higher net carbonate production rates (9.5 kg CaCO3 m-2 yr-1) than the inner reefs of both Pohnpei and Kosrae (7.0 and 7.8 kg CaCO3 m-2 yr-1, respectively). A. solaris were common on Kosrae and caused an average reduction in carbonate production of 0.6 kg CaCO3 m-2 yr-1 on Kosraean reefs. Northern outer reefs are the most likely habitats to keep up with sea-level rise in both Pohnpei and Kosrae. Overall, the inner reefs of Pohnpei and Kosrae need ~ 5.5% more coral cover to generate the same amount of carbonate as outer reefs. Therefore, inner reefs need special protection from land-use change and local pollution to keep pace with sea-level rise under all climate-change scenarios.

SUBMITTER: van Woesik R

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6857905 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Carbonate production of Micronesian reefs suppressed by thermal anomalies and Acanthaster as sea-level rises.

van Woesik Robert R Cacciapaglia Christopher William CW

PloS one 20191115 11

Coral reefs are essential to millions of island inhabitants. Yet, coral reefs are threatened by thermal anomalies associated with climate change and by local disturbances that include land-use change, pollution, and the coral-eating sea star Acanthaster solaris. In combination, these disturbances cause coral mortality that reduce the capacity of reefs to produce enough carbonate to keep up with sea-level rise. This study compared the reef-building capacity of shallow-water inner, patch, and oute ...[more]

PMID: 31730649

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Project description:Management authorities seldom have the capacity to comprehensively address the full suite of anthropogenic stressors, particularly in the coastal zone where numerous threats can act simultaneously to impact reefs and other ecosystems. This situation requires tools to prioritise management interventions that result in optimum ecological outcomes under a set of constraints. Here we develop one such tool, introducing a Bayesian Belief Network to model the ecological condition of inshore coral reefs in Moreton Bay (Australia) under a range of management actions. Empirical field data was used to model a suite of possible ecological responses of coral reef assemblages to five key management actions both in the sea (e.g. expansion of reserves, mangrove & seagrass restoration, fishing restrictions) and on land (e.g. lower inputs of sediment and sewage from treatment plants). Models show that expanding marine reserves (a 'marine action') and reducing sediment inputs from the catchments (a 'land action') were the most effective investments to achieve a better status of reefs in the Bay, with both having been included in >58% of scenarios with positive outcomes, and >98% of the most effective (5th percentile) scenarios. Heightened fishing restrictions, restoring habitats, and reducing nutrient discharges from wastewater treatment plants have additional, albeit smaller effects. There was no evidence that combining individual management actions would consistently produce sizeable synergistic until after maximum investment on both marine reserves (i.e. increasing reserve extent from 31 to 62% of reefs) and sediments (i.e. rehabilitating 6350 km of waterways within catchments to reduce sediment loads by 50%) were implemented. The method presented here provides a useful tool to prioritize environmental actions in situations where multiple competing management interventions exist for coral reefs and in other systems subjected to multiple stressor from the land and the sea.

Dataset Information

Carbonate production of Micronesian reefs suppressed by thermal anomalies and Acanthaster as sea-level rises.

Publications

Carbonate production of Micronesian reefs suppressed by thermal anomalies and Acanthaster as sea-level rises.

Similar Datasets

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