Spatial variation in the dynamics and synchrony of coral reef communities in the US Virgin Islands

Edmunds, Peter J.; Smith, Tyler B.

doi:10.1007/s00227-022-04048-5

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 69 publications

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“…While coral cover on St. John is declining slowly overall, there are some reefs, such as Tektite, that could be "oases" that resist decline (Guest et al, 2018). Additionally, compared to the neighboring island of St. Thomas, corals are not declining as quickly on St. John (Edmunds and Smith, 2022).…”

Section: Stony Coral Tissue Loss Diseasementioning

confidence: 99%

Examining coral reef ecosystem dynamics using microorganisms and metabolites

Becker¹

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Microorganisms and metabolites are foundational to the success and productivity of biodiverse and economically important coral reef ecosystems and are also tightly connected. Metabolites are small organic compounds produced by reef organisms and are the chemical currencies exchanged by unicellular microorganisms (bacteria and archaea) within the seawater. Although central to reef biogeochemical cycling, we still lack fundamental information on the dynamics of these components of reefs. In this dissertation, I analyzed microorganisms in Caribbean coral reef habitats over temporal, spatial and reef health gradients as well as metabolites in a spatial reef study. In Chapter 2, I applied a rapid sequencing methodology to corals afflicted with the lethal stony coral tissue loss disease and identified specific microorganisms which were biological indicators of the disease. In Chapter 3, I investigated the dynamics of microorganisms over short temporal tidal and diurnal cycles, as well as spatially across US Virgin Island (USVI) coastal habitats. In these habitats, I found tidal cycles were driving changes in microbial communities within mangroves, but diurnal patterns were more important in reef habitats. In Chapter 4, I examined reefs over a longer temporal scale by contributing to the building of a 7-year time-series of USVI reef ecology and found that reef water microorganisms were predictive of hurricane and stony coral tissue loss disease impacts. Finally, in Chapter 5, I combined analyses of untargeted and targeted metabolomics, microbial taxa, and functional genes from metagenomics across 300 km of reefs in Florida, in addition to microorganisms in healthy and diseased corals. With this unprecedented combination of ‘omics datasets, I found that biogeographic zones, environmental features, and underlying habitat characteristics were related to microbial and metabolite features in the reef ecosystem. Further, I identified microorganisms and metabolites which were characteristic of specific reef biogeographic zones. Collectively, my work advances our understanding into the dynamics of microorganisms and metabolites in biodiverse coral reef habitats across natural temporal and spatial gradients and in the face of unprecedented stress and disturbance.

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Section: Stony Coral Tissue Loss Diseasementioning

confidence: 99%

Examining coral reef ecosystem dynamics using microorganisms and metabolites

Becker¹

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Community-level spatiotemporal synchrony: new metric and application to White Sea meiobenthic harpacticoids

Azovsky

Chertoprud

Garlitska

2022

Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser.

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Synchrony is a multifaceted biological phenomenon exhibited at various levels of organization. Here, we introduce the concept of structural synchrony, defined as the coherence of structural variations in multispecies assemblages occurring at a certain spatiotemporal scale, and propose a direct measure of this type of synchrony. This approach was first tested on numeric simulations imitating various types of model community dynamics and then applied to a large data set on White Sea intertidal harpacticoids, covering a wide range of spatial (decimeters to 140 m) and temporal (days to 25 yr) scales. Scale-specific analysis revealed distinct patterns and allowed us to draw inferences about processes that drive community dynamics. Short-term (up to 1 mo) changes occurred independently or even anti-synchronically, possibly due to trophic-driven migrations. On a seasonal scale, a high degree of within-habitat synchrony occurred at time intervals of 2-3 mo or longer but dropped with increasing spatial distance; this pattern is most likely caused by seasonal reproductive dynamics of populations. At the interannual scale, external exposure, i.e. long-term changes in sediment composition, appeared to be the strongest synchronizing force for the harpacticoid community, while this factor was locally active and became most apparent at the within-habitat scale. We evaluate the advantages and limitations of our framework, highlighting its broad domain of application and anticipating potential extensions. We encourage ecologists to integrate structural synchrony analysis into their toolbox to quantitatively evaluate spatiotemporal community dynamics and to link these dynamics with underlying processes.

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Spatial variation in the dynamics and synchrony of coral reef communities in the US Virgin Islands

Cited by 2 publications

References 69 publications

Examining coral reef ecosystem dynamics using microorganisms and metabolites

Examining coral reef ecosystem dynamics using microorganisms and metabolites

Community-level spatiotemporal synchrony: new metric and application to White Sea meiobenthic harpacticoids

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