Stability of Reef-Coral Assemblages in the Quaternary

Precht, William F.; Aronson, Richard B.

doi:10.1007/978-94-017-7567-0_7

Cited by 9 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 213 publications

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“…Previous paleoecological studies from Pleistocene reef outcrops have demonstrated that, during periods of relatively stable sea level (i.e., highstands), the spatial variability in species assemblages among reef environments is generally greater than the temporal variability within individual locations (Aronson and Precht , Precht and Aronson ) and our Holocene reconstruction generally supports this conclusion. We did find that A. palmata was somewhat more abundant in our limited records from the early Holocene (i.e., before 8,200 yr BP) when the rates of sea‐level rise were most rapid (Khan et al.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 85%

The unprecedented loss of Florida's reef‐building corals and the emergence of a novel coral‐reef assemblage

Toth

Stathakopoulos

Kuffner

et al. 2019

Ecology

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Over the last half century, climate change, coral disease, and other anthropogenic disturbances have restructured coral‐reef ecosystems on a global scale. The disproportionate loss of once‐dominant, reef‐building taxa has facilitated relative increases in the abundance of “weedy” or stress‐tolerant coral species. Although the recent transformation of coral‐reef assemblages is unprecedented on ecological timescales, determining whether modern coral reefs have truly reached a novel ecosystem state requires evaluating the dynamics of reef composition over much longer periods of time. Here, we provide a geologic perspective on the shifting composition of Florida's reefs by reconstructing the millennial‐scale spatial and temporal variability in reef assemblages using 59 Holocene reef cores collected throughout the Florida Keys Reef Tract (FKRT). We then compare the relative abundances of reef‐building species in the Holocene reef framework to data from contemporary reef surveys to determine how much Florida's modern reef assemblages have diverged from long‐term baselines. We show that the composition of Florida's reefs was, until recently, remarkably stable over the last 8000 yr. The same corals that have dominated shallow‐water reefs throughout the western Atlantic for hundreds of thousands of years, Acropora palmata, Orbicella spp., and other massive coral taxa, accounted for nearly 90% of Florida's Holocene reef framework. In contrast, the species that now have the highest relative abundances on the FKRT, primarily Porites astreoides and Siderastrea siderea, were rare in the reef framework, suggesting that recent shifts in species assemblages are unprecedented over millennial timescales. Although it may not be possible to return coral reefs to pre‐Anthropocene states, our results suggest that coral‐reef management focused on the conservation and restoration of the reef‐building species of the past, will optimize efforts to preserve coral reefs, and the valuable ecosystem services they provide into the future.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 85%

The unprecedented loss of Florida's reef‐building corals and the emergence of a novel coral‐reef assemblage

Toth

Stathakopoulos

Kuffner

et al. 2019

Ecology

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“…In particular, the striking correspondence between modest net tempera-ture changes and regional losses in the warm-temperate Pliocene faunas is consistent with the view that such historical factors as past climatic changes and extinctions have played a major role in shaping the modern LDG (e.g., Mannion et al 2014). The temperature differences between modern and full-glacial Pleistocene conditions were greater than those in the Pliocene, albeit with roughly parallel interregional patterns (see Annan and Hargreaves 2013;Precht and Aronson 2016), and so could have contributed to, or reinforced, the observed trend. In any case, bivalves show differential regional extinctions with latitude that are positively related to net regional cooling over the past 3 million years and, probably, to the distribution of temperature minima in the Pleistocene.…”

Section: Evidence For In Situ Controlssupporting

confidence: 71%

Shaping the Latitudinal Diversity Gradient: New Perspectives from a Synthesis of Paleobiology and Biogeography

Jablonski

Huang

Roy

et al. 2017

The American Naturalist

128

133

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An impediment to understanding the origin and dynamics of the latitudinal diversity gradient (LDG)-the most pervasive large-scale biotic pattern on Earth-has been the tendency to focus narrowly on a single causal factor when a more synthetic, integrative approach is needed. Using marine bivalves as a model system and drawing on other systems where possible, we review paleobiologic and biogeographic support for two supposedly opposing views, that the LDG is shaped primarily by (a) local environmental factors that determine the number of species and higher taxa at a given latitude (in situ hypotheses) or (b) the entry of lineages arising elsewhere into a focal region (spatial dynamics hypotheses). Support for in situ hypotheses includes the fit of present-day diversity trends in many clades to such environmental factors as temperature and the correlation of extinction intensities in Pliocene bivalve faunas with net regional temperature changes. Support for spatial dynamics hypotheses includes the age-frequency distribution of bivalve genera across latitudes, which is consistent with an out-of-the-tropics dynamic, as are the higher species diversities in temperate southeastern Australia and southeastern Japan than in the tropical Caribbean. Thus, both in situ and spatial dynamics processes must shape the bivalve LDG and are likely to operate in other groups as well. The relative strengths of the two processes may differ among groups showing similar LDGs, but dissecting their effects will require improved methods of integrating fossil data with molecular phylogenies. We highlight several potential research directions and argue that many of the most dramatic biotic patterns, past and present, are likely to have been generated by diverse, mutually reinforcing drivers.

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“…Over longer timescales, they also shape the rate of calcium-carbonate production, framework building by corals and the accumulation of sedimentary deposits (Done, 2011). Despite the significant, short-term impacts cyclonic storms and terrigenous sediment input can have on reef systems (Cubasch et al, 2013), episodic disturbances are smoothed out on geologic scales (10 000s years) where reef systems are characterised by remarkable persistence and resilience (Precht and Aronson, 2016). The persistent factors (e.g.…”

Section: Environmental Controls On Reef Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring coral reef responses to millennial-scale climatic forcings: insights from the 1-D numerical tool pyReef-Core v1.0

et al. 2018

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Abstract. Assemblages of corals characterise specific reef biozones and the environmental conditions that change spatially across a reef and with depth. Drill cores through fossil reefs record the time and depth distribution of assemblages, which captures a partial history of the vertical growth response of reefs to changing palaeoenvironmental conditions. The effects of environmental factors on reef growth are well understood on ecological timescales but are poorly constrained at centennial to geological timescales. pyReefCore is a stratigraphic forward model designed to solve the problem of unobservable environmental processes controlling vertical reef development by simulating the physical, biological and sedimentological processes that determine vertical assemblage changes in drill cores. It models the stratigraphic development of coral reefs at centennial to millennial timescales under environmental forcing conditions including accommodation (relative sea-level upward growth), oceanic variability (flow speed, nutrients, pH and temperature), sediment input and tectonics. It also simulates competitive coral assemblage interactions using the generalised Lotka-Volterra system of equations (GLVEs) and can be used to infer the influence of environmental conditions on the zonation and vertical accretion and stratigraphic succession of coral assemblages over decadal timescales and greater. The tool can quantitatively test carbonate platform development under the influence of ecological and environmental processes and efficiently interpret vertical growth and karstification patterns observed in drill cores. We provide two realistic case studies illustrating the basic capabilities of the model and use it to reconstruct (1) the Holocene history (from 8500 years to present) of coral community responses to environmental changes and (2) the evolution of an idealised coral reef core since the last interglacial (from 140 000 years to present) under the influence of sea-level change, subsidence and karstification. We find that the model reproduces the details of the formation of existing coral reef stratigraphic sequences both in terms of assemblages succession, accretion rates and depositional thicknesses. It can be applied to estimate the impact of changing environmental conditions on growth rates and patterns under many different settings and initial conditions.

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Stability of Reef-Coral Assemblages in the Quaternary

Cited by 9 publications

References 213 publications

The unprecedented loss of Florida's reef‐building corals and the emergence of a novel coral‐reef assemblage

The unprecedented loss of Florida's reef‐building corals and the emergence of a novel coral‐reef assemblage

Shaping the Latitudinal Diversity Gradient: New Perspectives from a Synthesis of Paleobiology and Biogeography

Exploring coral reef responses to millennial-scale climatic forcings: insights from the 1-D numerical tool pyReef-Core v1.0

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