Effects of eutrophication on reef-building corals

Tomascik, T.; Sander, Finn

doi:10.1007/bf00392900

Cited by 186 publications

(61 citation statements)

References 50 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…In contrast, sites under strong water circulation, which prevents sediment deposition, were largely dominated by higher coral species richness, H'n, J'n, CCA, and by a higher abundance of juvenile corals and sponges. These patterns reflected variation associated to gradient impacts and were consistent with previous observations in the Caribbean (Tomascik & Sander, 1987a;Tomascik, 1991). , 2014).…”

Section: Environmental Stress Gradient Impacts On Coral Reefssupporting

confidence: 90%

“…Eutrophication may also foster phytoplankton blooms (Bell, 1992;McComb, 1995;Arhonditsis, Karydis, & Tsirtsis, 2003), harmful algal blooms (Anderson, Glibert, & Burkholder, 2002), rapid macroalgal growth (Naim, 1993), a long-term decline in fisheries productivity (Hodgkiss & Yim, 1995), and a net decline in seagrass (Duarte, 1995;Tomasko, Dawes & Hall, 1996) and coral reef communities (Lapointe & Clark, 1992;Cloern, 2001;Dí az-Ortega & Herná ndez-Delgado, 2014;Duprey, Yasuhara, & Baker, 2016). Corals are particularly susceptible to eutrophication as a result of declining growth rates (Tomascik & Sander, 1985;Tomascik, 1990), reproductive output (Tomascik & Sander, 1987b), larval settlement rates (Tomascik, 1991), increased incidence of diseases (Kaczmarsky, Draud, & Williams, 2005), altered Environmental Management and Sustainable Development ISSN 2164-7682 2017 microbiology (Kline, Kuntz, Breitbart, Knowlton et al, 2006), and increased susceptibility to bleaching (Vega-Thurber, Burkepile, Fuchs, Shantz et al, 2013;Wiedenmann et al, 2013), and mortality (Pastorok & Byliard, 1985), often impacting benthic community structure (Tomascik & Sander, 1987a). These impacts are often confounded with sedimentation effects (Rogers, 1990;Meesters, Bak, Westmacott, Ridgley et al, 1998;Risk, 2014), and can be readily magnified by climate change-related factors (Ateweberhan, Feary, Keshavmurthy, Chen et al, 2013).…”

Section: Implications Of Environmental Stress On Coral Reef Conservatmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Unsustainable Land Use, Sediment-Laden Runoff, and Chronic Raw Sewage Offset the Benefits of Coral Reef Ecosystems in a No-Take Marine Protected Area

Hernández-Delgado

Medina-Muniz²,

Mattei

et al. 2017

EMSD

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Unsustainable land uses may result in poor watershed management, increased soil erosion, poorly-planned urban development, increased runoff, and sewage pollution, creating an environmental stress gradient across coastal coral reefs. This study was aimed at: 1) Evaluating water quality within and outside the Canal Luis Peña Natural Reserve (CLPNR), Culebra Island, Puerto Rico; 2) Determining if there was any significant environmental stress gradient associated to land-based non-point source pollution; and 3) Characterizing shallow-water coral reef communities across the gradient. Strong gradient impacts associated

show abstract

Section: Environmental Stress Gradient Impacts On Coral Reefssupporting

confidence: 90%

Section: Implications Of Environmental Stress On Coral Reef Conservatmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unsustainable Land Use, Sediment-Laden Runoff, and Chronic Raw Sewage Offset the Benefits of Coral Reef Ecosystems in a No-Take Marine Protected Area

Hernández-Delgado

Medina-Muniz²,

Mattei

et al. 2017

EMSD

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Such reductions in irradiance are common on deep reef slopes (Smith et al, 2014), or nearshore, where turbidity and chlorophylla concentrations are high (Wagner et al, 2010;van Woesik et al, 2012). Yet, reef corals generally prefer low-nutrient waters (Tomascik and Sander, 1987), and nearshore environments support high nutrient concentrations, which in combination with high temperatures are detrimental to reef corals (Wooldridge and Done, 2009;Wagner et al, 2010;Wiedenmann et al, 2013). Still, if shading in nearshore, turbid environments provides protection to corals under thermal-stress events, then the corals that can tolerate those nearshore conditions may be selected for when thermal-stress events become frequent.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Repeated Thermal Stress, Shading, and Directional Selection in the Florida Reef Tract

Woesik

McCaffrey

2017

Front. Mar. Sci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Over the last three decades reef corals have been subjected to an unprecedented frequency and intensity of thermal-stress events, which have led to extensive coral bleaching, disease, and mortality. Over the next century, the climate is predicted to drive sea-surface temperatures to even higher levels, consequently increasing the risk of mass bleaching and disease outbreaks. Yet, there is considerable temporal and spatial variation in coral bleaching and in disease prevalence. Using data collected from 2,398 sites along the Florida reef tract from 2005 to 2015, this study examined the temporal and spatial patterns of coral bleaching and disease in relation to coral-colony size, depth, temperature, and chlorophyll-a concentrations. The results show that coral bleaching was most prevalent during the warmest years in 2014 and 2015, and disease was also most prevalent in 2010, 2014, and 2015. Although the majority of the corals surveyed were found in habitats with low chlorophyll-a concentrations, and high irradiance, these same habitats showed the highest prevalence of coral bleaching and disease outbreaks during thermal-stress events. These results suggest that directional selection in a warming ocean may favor corals able to tolerate inshore, shaded environments with high turbidity and productivity.

show abstract

“…However, most of the studies addressing nutrient effects on coral reefs are observational, comparing sites that are apparently more versus less impacted or a single site observed over a time course of nutrient disturbance (e.g., Tomascik and Sander 1987;Littler et al 1991;Wittenberg and Hunte 1992;Genin et al 1995). Observational studies of such sites are valuable but run the risk of being confounded by other factors that vary between the sites being compared or by multiple types of anthropogenic and natural disturbances.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of nutrients versus herbivores on reef algae: A new method for manipulating nutrients on coral reefs

Miller

Hay

Miller³

et al. 1999

Limnology & Oceanography

136

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

There has been much discussion and some controversy regarding the role of nutrient enrichment versus other factors, such as altered rates of herbivory, in the degradation of coral reef ecosystems. The resolution of this controversy has been hampered by the lack of manipulative field studies testing the effects of ecologically relevant levels of nutrient enrichment on coral reef communities. We present a new method for adding ecologically relevant levels of nutrients to experimental substrates on coral reefs. The method elevates nutrients for sustained periods of time (Ͼ41 d without replenishment of nutrients) and allows for testing interactions of nutrients and altered levels of herbivory. Results from an offshore reef in Key Largo, Florida, show strong effects of excluding large herbivorous fishes, negligible effects of nutrient enrichment-or effects that are opposite of predictions, and no interaction between nutrient levels and herbivory in affecting algal abundance. Patterns observed for this reef did not confirm predictions of previously proposed models that frondose macroalgal or crustose algal abundance would be enhanced with nutrient enrichment or that dominance of filamentous turfs would be greater in unenriched conditions. In contrast to previous predictions, the abundance of larger macroalgae at this site was not increased by elevating nutrients above predicted threshold response levels of 1.0 M for total inorganic nitrogen or 0.10 M for soluble reactive phosphate. Also conflicting with some models, filamentous, nitrogen-fixing cyanobacteria were enhanced, rather than suppressed, by nutrient enrichment.There is considerable concern among scientists and conservationists regarding the degradation of coral reef com-

show abstract

Effects of eutrophication on reef-building corals

Cited by 186 publications

References 50 publications

Unsustainable Land Use, Sediment-Laden Runoff, and Chronic Raw Sewage Offset the Benefits of Coral Reef Ecosystems in a No-Take Marine Protected Area

Unsustainable Land Use, Sediment-Laden Runoff, and Chronic Raw Sewage Offset the Benefits of Coral Reef Ecosystems in a No-Take Marine Protected Area

Repeated Thermal Stress, Shading, and Directional Selection in the Florida Reef Tract

Effects of nutrients versus herbivores on reef algae: A new method for manipulating nutrients on coral reefs

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About