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Recent deterioration of coral reefs in the South China Sea due to multiple disturbances

ABSTRACT: More frequent global warming events, biological disasters, and anthropogenic activities have caused extensive damage to coral reefs around the world. Coral reefs in the Xisha Islands (also known as the Paracel Islands) have been damaged following rounds of heatwaves and crown-of-thorns starfish (CoTS) outbreaks over recent decades. Based on a comprehensive community survey in 2020, we determined a diagnosis for the present state of six coral regions in the Xisha Islands. The findings suggested that these regions had a total of 213 species of scleractinian corals belonging to 43 genera and 16 families. Living coral coverage across sites was widely divergent and ranged from 0.40% (IQR: 7.74–0.27%) in Panshi Yu to 38.20% (IQR: 43.00–35.90%) in Bei Jiao. Coral bleaching prevalence was 23.90% (IQR: 41.60–13.30%) overall and topped out at 49.30% (IQR: 50.60–48.10%) in Bei Jiao. Five of the coral regions (all but Yongxing Dao) were under threat of CoTS outbreaks. High mortality combined with excellent recruitment rates suggested potential rehabilitation after recent deterioration. We employed a quantifiable Deterioration Index (DI) to evaluate the intensity of deterioration of coral reefs in the Xisha Islands. The results showed that Yongxing Dao and Langhua Jiao had low recent deterioration (DIrecent = 0.05, IQR: 0.07–0.02 and 0.04, IQR: 0.11–0.01, respectively), while Bei Jiao, Yongle Atoll, Yuzhuo Jiao, and Panshi Yu had high recent deterioration (DIrecent > 0.16). Different monitoring sites within the same coral region were heterogeneous with regards to all above indexes. Moreover, we reviewed and discussed potential disturbances that threaten the health of the Xisha Islands’ corals. It is crucial to identify severely afflicted areas and find successful methods to better manage coral reef health in this region.

SUBMITTER: Xiao J

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9332401 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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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.

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Recent deterioration of coral reefs in the South China Sea due to multiple disturbances

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