The adaptation of coral reefs to climate change: Is the Red Queen being outpaced?

Høegh-Guldberg, Ove

doi:10.3989/scimar.03660.29a

Cited by 30 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 54 publications

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“…Evidence of this, however, has not eventuated. These propositions also suffer from the problem that both the coral and the symbiont need to adapt to temperature change (HoeghGuldberg et al, 2002;Stat et al, 2006Stat et al, , 2009Hoegh-Guldberg, 2012, 2014a. There are several observations of the shuffling of strains of Symbiodinium within the one host in response to warming (Rowan et al, 1997).…”

Section: Evidence For Evolutionary Responses and The Relocation Of Ecmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Some of the highest rates of climate velocity (up to 200 km per decade) were observed in ocean tropical regions (over 1960-2010), driven by shallow spatial gradients in temperature (Burrows et al, 2011. Observed rates of distribution shifts for individual warm-water coral species linked to increases in sea surface temperatures range from 0 to 150 km per decade, with an average shift rate of 30 km per decade (Yamano et al, 2011;Poloczanska et al, 2013), suggesting that corals and coral ecosystems may be unable to keep up with warming rates (Hoegh-Guldberg, 2012;Burrows et al, 2014;García Molinos et al, 2015).…”

Section: Biological Responses To a Rapidly Warming And Acidifying Oceanmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Reef -building corals, like all organisms, can adjust their phenotype or acclimate to match local conditions to some extent (Gates and Edmunds, 1999;Middlebrook et al, 2010Middlebrook et al, , 2012. However, there is little or no evidence that acclimatization has resulted in an upward shift in the thermal tolerance of reef-building corals Hoegh-Guldberg, 2012;Hoegh-Guldberg et al, 2014). Corals appear able to shift the relative ratio of different genetic clades or varieties of Symbiodinium within the one coral colony, which is correlated with tolerance to extreme temperatures (Rowan et al, 1997;Berkelmans and van Oppen, 2006;Jones et al, 2008).…”

Section: Evidence For Evolutionary Responses and The Relocation Of Ecmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Evidence from the past 25 years, over which time satellite measurement programmes have used a simple algorithm based on sea surface temperature anomalies (relative to the average summer-time maxima [1985][1986][1987][1988][1989][1990][1991][1992][1993] to predict when and where mass coral bleaching and mortality is likely to occur. This strongly suggests that little change has occurred in the sensitivity of reef building corals to thermal stress Strong et al, 2011;Hoegh-Guldberg, 2012). Nonetheless, it is important to consider potential evolutionary responses of reefbuilding corals over the next 100 years as well as the potential for coral reef ecosystems to relocate, as conditions change.…”

Section: Evidence For Evolutionary Responses and The Relocation Of Ecmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Understanding how the positions of ocean isotherms (lines of similar temperatures) are changing and how fast across the ocean surface ("velocity of climate change", Burrows et al, 2011Burrows et al, , 2014 provides insight into whether or not coral populations will be able to move, adapt or acclimatize fast enough to changing sea temperatures (Hoegh-Guldberg, 2012;Pörtner et al, 2014). Some of the highest rates of climate velocity (up to 200 km per decade) were observed in ocean tropical regions (over 1960-2010), driven by shallow spatial gradients in temperature (Burrows et al, 2011.…”

Section: Biological Responses To a Rapidly Warming And Acidifying Oceanmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Coral Reef Ecosystems under Climate Change and Ocean Acidification

et al. 2017

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Coral reefs are found in a wide range of environments, where they provide food and habitat to a large range of organisms as well as providing many other ecological goods and services. Warm-water coral reefs, for example, occupy shallow sunlit, warm, and alkaline waters in order to grow and calcify at the high rates necessary to build and maintain their calcium carbonate structures. At deeper locations (40-150 m), "mesophotic" (low light) coral reefs accumulate calcium carbonate at much lower rates (if at all in some cases) yet remain important as habitat for a wide range of organisms, including those important for fisheries. Finally, even deeper, down to 2,000 m or more, the so-called "cold-water" coral reefs are found in the dark depths. Despite their importance, coral reefs are facing significant challenges from human activities including pollution, over-harvesting, physical destruction, and climate change. In the latter case, even lower greenhouse gas emission scenarios (such as Representative Concentration Pathway RCP 4.5) are likely drive the elimination of most warm-water coral reefs by 2040-2050. Cold-water corals are also threatened by warming temperatures and ocean acidification although evidence of the direct effect of climate change is less clear. Evidence that coral reefs can adapt at rates which are sufficient for them to keep up with rapid ocean warming and acidification is minimal, especially given that corals are long-lived and hence have slow rates of evolution. Conclusions that coral reefs will migrate to higher latitudes as they warm are equally unfounded, with the observations of tropical species appearing at high latitudes "necessary but not sufficient" evidence that entire coral reef ecosystems are shifting. On the contrary, coral reefs are likely to degrade rapidly over the next 20 years, presenting fundamental challenges for the 500 million people who derive food, income, coastal protection, and a range of other services from coral reefs. Unless rapid advances to the goals of the Paris Climate Change Agreement occur over the next decade, hundreds of millions of people are likely to face increasing amounts of poverty and social disruption, and, in some cases, regional insecurity.

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