Coral reefs in the Anthropocene

Hughes, Terry P.; Barnes, Michele L.; Bellwood, David R.; Cinner, Joshua E.; Cumming, Graeme S.; Jackson, Jeremy B. C.; Kleypas, Joanie; Leemput, Ingrid A. van de; Lough, Janice; Morrison, Tiffany H.; Palumbi, Stephen R.; Nes, Egbert H. van; Scheffer, Marten

doi:10.1038/nature22901

Cited by 1,547 publications

(1,251 citation statements)

References 102 publications

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“…Although reef-building coral populations are experiencing wide-spread die offs in the Anthropocene (Hughes et al, 2017), in many ways corals have the necessary tool-kit to cope with nearfuture climate change. Firstly, corals generally have large effective populations sizes with high levels of genetic diversity.…”

Section: Evolution In the Face Of Environmental Changementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Bleaching sparked by an increase of ocean water temperature has triggered widespread coral mortality over the past decades, including global die-offs in the recent 2015, 2016, and 2017 El Niño years (Hughes et al, 2017). Yet coral reefs occur in a variety of different temperature regimes, with corals in one area able to withstand the same warm temperatures that cause bleaching in their conspecifics from other areas.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Mechanisms of Thermal Tolerance in Reef-Building Corals across a Fine-Grained Environmental Mosaic: Lessons from Ofu, American Samoa

et al. 2018

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Environmental heterogeneity gives rise to phenotypic variation through a combination of phenotypic plasticity and fixed genetic effects. For reef-building corals, understanding the relative roles of acclimatization and adaptation in generating thermal tolerance is fundamental to predicting the response of coral populations to future climate change. The temperature mosaic in the lagoon of Ofu, American Samoa, represents an ideal natural laboratory for studying thermal tolerance in corals. Two adjacent back-reef pools approximately 500 m apart have different temperature profiles: the highly variable (HV) pool experiences temperatures that range from 24.5 to 35 • C, whereas the moderately variable (MV) pool ranges from 25 to 32 • C. Standardized heat stress tests have shown that corals native to the HV pool have consistently higher levels of bleaching resistance than those in the MV pool. In this review, we summarize research into the mechanisms underlying this variation in bleaching resistance, focusing on the important reef-building genus Acropora. Both acclimatization and adaptation occur strongly and define thermal tolerance differences between pools. Most individual corals shift physiology to become more heat resistant when moved into the warmer pool. Lab based tests show that these shifts begin in as little as a week and are equally sparked by exposure to periodic high temperatures as constant high temperatures. Transcriptome-wide data on gene expression show that a wide variety of genes are co-regulated in expression modules that change expression after experimental heat stress, after acclimatization, and even after short term environmental fluctuations. Population genetic scans show associations between a corals' thermal environment and its alleles at 100s to 1000s of nuclear genes and no single gene confers strong environmental effects within or between species. Symbionts also tend to differ between pools and species, and the thermal tolerance of a coral is a reflection of individual host genotype and specific symbiont types. We conclude the review by placing this work in the context of parallel research going on in other species, reefs, and ecosystems around the world and into the broader framework of reef coral resilience in the face of climate change.

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Section: Evolution In the Face Of Environmental Changementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mechanisms of Thermal Tolerance in Reef-Building Corals across a Fine-Grained Environmental Mosaic: Lessons from Ofu, American Samoa

et al. 2018

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“…Actors in our case study area improved their management plan by getting around barriers (flexibility in the content, cross-level collaboration). Recent studies show that water policies (e.g., groundwater abstraction limits) depend on higher level institutional level policies, but also require choices among local level actors to provide adaptation measures that benefit the ecosystem [69][70][71].…”

Section: Temporal and Spatial Arrangements Applied To Ecosystem Consementioning

confidence: 99%

Matching Ecosystem Functions with Adaptive Ecosystem Management: Decision Pathways to Overcome Institutional Barriers

Nanda

Rijke

Beesley

et al. 2018

Water

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Environmental management strategies aim to protect or repair ecological assets (ecosystems, species) so that their ecological and social values can be preserved. However, creating an effective strategy is difficult because multiple government departments are involved and because water and land use legislation and policy instruments are often fragmented. A key obstacle that is often overlooked is the spatial mismatch between ecological processes and institutional organisation (i.e., legislative framework and government departments). Successful management depends on the ability to cultivate resilient ecosystems through institutional reforms that take into account the complexity of ecosystems while supporting cross-sectoral and scale-dependent decision-making within the science-policy interface. Here, we use a case study approach to illustrate how collective strategic decisions can be made to manage a valued ecosystem situated within an urban matrix. We used a three-step framework to guide our approach and commenced by identifying a range of adaptation measures (i.e., management interventions) and the actors responsible. For each adaptation measure, we then investigated (i) mismatches among ecosystem and institution scales and levels; (ii) institutional barriers; and (iii) the role of actors in decision making. We use this information to identify 'decision pathways': i.e., a flexible decision-making platform that assists stakeholders to make strategic short-and long-term decisions. Key insights included the discussion of policy and practical experiences for ecosystem management at different levels and the necessary conditions to provide better alignment between jurisdictional an ecosystem scale to guide decision makers accordingly. We detail the institutional and jurisdictional changes that must be implemented across all levels of governance to protect and support the resilience of environmental assets. 'Short-term' decision pathways were preferred among actors and cross-level cooperation at jurisdictional level provided an adequate fit with the ecosystem scale. 'Long-term' decisions require substantial change of the institutional framework to enable the implementation of adaptive management. Although challenges at institutional and jurisdictional scales remain, decision pathways promote adaptive ecosystem management through a better fit of jurisdictional and institutional roles/policy and ecosystem-scale processes.

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“…Back-to-back bleaching events were experienced in 2016 and 2017 on the GBR, resulting in over 80% mortality of corals in some regions and an estimated loss of 29% of corals across the GBR system 3,6 . In addition to global pressures related to climate change, coral reefs are also affected at local scales 7 .…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Each year Australia's iconic Great Barrier Reef (GBR) attracts millions of tourists from all over the world and provides $6.4 billion dollars to the Australian economy 2 . However, reefs globally are facing unprecedented pressures 3 . During the past three decades, the GBR has also been severely impacted by the combined effects of climate change, crown of thorns starfish outbreaks, coral disease, overfishing and declining water quality [3][4][5] .…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Establishing microbial baselines to identify indicators of coral reef health

et al. 2018

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Microorganisms make a significant contribution to reef ecosystem health and resilience via their critical role in mediating nutrient transformations, their interactions with macro-organisms and their provision of chemical cues that underpin the recruitment of diverse reef taxa. However, environmental changes often cause compositional and functional shifts in microbial communities that can have flow-on consequences for microbial-mediated processes. These microbial alterations may impact the health of specific host organisms and can have repercussions for the functioning of entire coral ecosystems. Assessing changes in reef microbial communities should therefore provide an early indicator of ecosystem impacts and would underpin the development of diagnostic tools that could help forecast shifts in coral reef health under different environmental states. Monitoring, management and active restoration efforts have recently intensified and diversified in response to global declines in coral reef health. Here we propose that regular monitoring of coral reef microorganisms could provide a rapid and sensitive platform for identifying declining ecosystem health that can complement existing management frameworks. By summarising the most common threats to coral reefs, with a particular focus on the Great Barrier Reef, and elaborating on the role of microbes in coral reef health and ecosystem stability, we highlight the diagnostic applicability of microbes in reef management programs. Fundamental to this objective is the establishment of microbial baselines for Australia's coral reefs.

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Coral reefs in the Anthropocene

Cited by 1,547 publications

References 102 publications

Mechanisms of Thermal Tolerance in Reef-Building Corals across a Fine-Grained Environmental Mosaic: Lessons from Ofu, American Samoa

Mechanisms of Thermal Tolerance in Reef-Building Corals across a Fine-Grained Environmental Mosaic: Lessons from Ofu, American Samoa

Matching Ecosystem Functions with Adaptive Ecosystem Management: Decision Pathways to Overcome Institutional Barriers

Establishing microbial baselines to identify indicators of coral reef health

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