Dataset Information

A framework for experimental scenarios of global change in marine systems using coral reefs as a case study.

ABSTRACT: Understanding the consequences of rising CO2 and warming on marine ecosystems is a pressing issue in ecology. Manipulative experiments that assess responses of biota to future ocean warming and acidification conditions form a necessary basis for expectations on how marine taxa may respond. Although designing experiments in the context of local variability is most appropriate, local temperature and CO2 characteristics are often unknown as such measures necessitate significant resources, and even less is known about local future scenarios. To help address these issues, we summarize current uncertainties in CO2 emission trajectories and climate sensitivity, examine region-specific changes in the ocean, and present a straightforward global framework to guide experimental designs. We advocate for the inclusion of multiple plausible future scenarios of predicted levels of ocean warming and acidification in forthcoming experimental research. Growing a robust experimental base is crucial to understanding the prospect form and function of marine ecosystems in the Anthropocene.

SUBMITTER: Geraldi NR

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7029932 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

A framework for experimental scenarios of global change in marine systems using coral reefs as a case study.

Geraldi Nathan R NR Klein Shannon G SG Anton Andrea A Duarte Carlos M CM

Royal Society open science 20200122 1

Understanding the consequences of rising CO<sub>2</sub> and warming on marine ecosystems is a pressing issue in ecology. Manipulative experiments that assess responses of biota to future ocean warming and acidification conditions form a necessary basis for expectations on how marine taxa may respond. Although designing experiments in the context of local variability is most appropriate, local temperature and CO<sub>2</sub> characteristics are often unknown as such measures necessitate significan ...[more]

PMID: 32218942

Similar Datasets

Project description:Climate change is impacting coral reefs now. Recent pan-tropical bleaching events driven by unprecedented global heat waves have shifted the playing field for coral reef management and policy. While best-practice conventional management remains essential, it may no longer be enough to sustain coral reefs under continued climate change. Nor will climate change mitigation be sufficient on its own. Committed warming and projected reef decline means solutions must involve a portfolio of mitigation, best-practice conventional management and coordinated restoration and adaptation measures involving new and perhaps radical interventions, including local and regional cooling and shading, assisted coral evolution, assisted gene flow, and measures to support and enhance coral recruitment. We propose that proactive research and development to expand the reef management toolbox fast but safely, combined with expedient trialling of promising interventions is now urgently needed, whatever emissions trajectory the world follows. We discuss the challenges and opportunities of embracing new interventions in a race against time, including their risks and uncertainties. Ultimately, solutions to the climate challenge for coral reefs will require consideration of what society wants, what can be achieved technically and economically, and what opportunities we have for action in a rapidly closing window. Finding solutions that work for coral reefs and people will require exceptional levels of coordination of science, management and policy, and open engagement with society. It will also require compromise, because reefs will change under climate change despite our best interventions. We argue that being clear about society's priorities, and understanding both the opportunities and risks that come with an expanded toolset, can help us make the most of a challenging situation. We offer a conceptual model to help reef managers frame decision problems and objectives, and to guide effective strategy choices in the face of complexity and uncertainty.

Project description:Significance Ecological theory predicts that under the same environmental conditions, an ecosystem could have more than one community state that is maintained by reinforcing feedbacks. If so, a sufficiently large disturbance can flip the system to a less desired community that is difficult to reverse. Here, we demonstrate that a coral reef can become trapped in a seaweed-dominated state in the same conditions under which corals thrive. The implications are profound, particularly in light of the increasing occurrence of shifts to seaweed on coral reefs worldwide. Our results indicate that anticipatory management strategies that lessen the chance of a switch to seaweeds will be more effective than those aimed at restoring the coral community after a shift. Ecological theory predicts that ecosystems with multiple basins of attraction can get locked in an undesired state, which has profound ecological and management implications. Despite their significance, alternative attractors have proven to be challenging to detect and characterize in natural communities. On coral reefs, it has been hypothesized that persistent coral-to-macroalgae “phase shifts” that can result from overfishing of herbivores and/or nutrient enrichment may reflect a regime shift to an alternate attractor, but, to date, the evidence has been equivocal. Our field experiments in Moorea, French Polynesia, revealed the following: (i) hysteresis existed in the herbivory–macroalgae relationship, creating the potential for coral–macroalgae bistability at some levels of herbivory, and (ii) macroalgae were an alternative attractor under prevailing conditions in the lagoon but not on the fore reef, where ambient herbivory fell outside the experimentally delineated region of hysteresis. These findings help explain the different community responses to disturbances between lagoon and fore reef habitats of Moorea over the past several decades and reinforce the idea that reversing an undesired shift on coral reefs can be difficult. Our experimental framework represents a powerful diagnostic tool to probe for multiple attractors in ecological systems and, as such, can inform management strategies needed to maintain critical ecosystem functions in the face of escalating stresses.

Dataset Information

A framework for experimental scenarios of global change in marine systems using coral reefs as a case study.

Publications

A framework for experimental scenarios of global change in marine systems using coral reefs as a case study.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure