Transient amplification enhances the persistence of tropicalising coral populations in marginal high latitude environments

Cant, James; Cook, Katie; Reimer, James Davis; Mezaki, Takuma; Nakamura, Masako; O’Flaherty, Cliodhna; Salguero‐Gómez, Roberto; Beger, Maria

doi:10.1101/2021.04.23.441133

Cited by 5 publications

(9 citation statements)

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“…Despite these results, there are clear links between compensation and key biological processes. For example, compensation has been linked to the invasiveness of plants (Jelbert et al, 2019) or the ability of coral populations to persist in unstable environmental conditions (Cant et al, 2021). Thus, although our results must be carefully interpreted, we argue that compensation is still linked with the life history strategy of species, though the exact mechanism deserves further exploration.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Life history mediates the trade‐offs among different components of demographic resilience

et al. 2022

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Preventing biodiversity loss in the face of global change is a major challenge in ecology and conservation (Folke et al., 2004;Scheffer et al., 2012). As global change accelerates (Hoegh-Guldberg et al., 2018), species-and the services that they provide (Pecl et al., 2017)-are being lost at an unprecedented rate (Barnosky et al., 2012;Pimm et al., 2014). Still, some species can persist or even increase their abundance despite the increasingly frequent and intense disturbance events, as a consequence of global change (Antão et al., 2020;Blowes et al., 2019;van Klink et al., 2020). Such an ability to persist after a disturbance depends, to a large extent, on the species' inherent ability to resist and recover from such events, their resilience (Capdevila, Stott, et al., 2020;Hodgson et al., 2015). Therefore, understanding what makes some species more/less resilient than others is crucial to developing effective management and conservation plans (Pressey et al., 2007). Yet, the lack of data regarding species' natural population's responses to disturbances and robust methods to quantify resilience have hampered

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Life history mediates the trade‐offs among different components of demographic resilience

et al. 2022

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“…Notably, we illustrate how coral assemblages exposed to more variable thermal conditions display enhanced transient potential. Using data focused on a single taxon, Cant et al 44 suggested that a capacity for short-term increases in population growth observed in a subtropical Acropora spp. assemblage may underpin its viability in more variable high-latitude environments.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Short-term increases in population growth following disturbance have been demonstrated in a representative subtropical competitive coral assemblage (Acropora spp.) 44 .…”

Section: Interspecific Variation In Transient Characteristicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Coral assemblages at higher latitudes favour short-term potential over long-term performance

Cant

Reimer

Sommer

et al. 2021

Preprint

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The current exposure of species assemblages to high environmental variability may grant them resilience to future increases in climatic variability. In globally threatened coral reef ecosystems, management seeks to protect resilient reefs within variable environments. Yet, our lack of understanding for the determinants of coral population performance within variable environments hinders forecasting the future reassembly of coral communities. Here, using Integral Projection Models, we compare the short- (i.e., transient) and long-term (i.e., asymptotic) demographic characteristics of tropical and subtropical coral assemblages to evaluate how thermal variability influences the structural composition of coral communities over time. Exploring spatial variation across the dynamics of functionally different competitive, stress-tolerant, and weedy coral assemblages in Australia and Japan, we show that coral assemblages trade-off long-term performance for transient potential in response to thermal variability. We illustrate how coral assemblages can reduce their susceptibility towards environmental variation by exploiting volatile short-term demographic strategies, thus enhancing their persistence within variable environments. However, we also reveal considerable variation across the vulnerability of competitive, stress-tolerant, and weedy coral assemblages towards future increases in thermal variability. In particular, stress-tolerant and weedy corals possess an enhanced capacity for elevating their transient potential in response to environmental variability. Accordingly, despite their current exposure to high thermal variability, future climatic shifts threaten the structural complexity of coral assemblages, derived mostly from competitive coral taxa within highly variable subtropical environments, emulating the degradation expected across global coral communities.

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“…Within more stochastic environments populations endure more frequent (a)biotic fluctuations, each with the capacity to impose shifts in their structural composition. Following these disturbances, characteristics that inhibit transient declines in population growth, or those promoting short-term increases are likely more beneficial than those maximising long-term performance (12, 28). Logically, therefore, increased stochasticity should select for increased resistance (i.e ., a population’s ability to avoid a decline in size after disturbance) and/or compensation (the ability to increase in size after disturbance), and shorter recovery time (henceforth recovery, the time needed for converging back to a stationary equilibrium after disturbance) (29, 30) (Fig.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recent exposure to environmental stochasticity does not determine the resilience of natural populations

Cant

Capdevila

Beger

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Escalating climatic and anthropogenic pressures expose ecosystems worldwide to increasingly frequent disturbances. Yet, our ability to forecast the responses of natural populations to global change is impeded by a limited understanding of how exposure to environmental change shapes population resilience. Here, we test the association between local regimes of environmental change and the resilience to disturbance of 2,242 natural populations across 369 terrestrial and aquatic animal and plant species. Unexpectedly, we find that recent abiotic disturbance regimes (<50 years) do not predict the inherent ability of populations to resist and recover from disturbances. Instead, population resilience carries a strong evolutionary signal, with survival and developmental investments playing a key role in shaping population responses to disturbance. Contrary to assumptions that exposure to more frequent disturbances confers a greater ability to cope with future global change, population resilience relies on evolutionary processes that have shaped species characteristics over many generations.

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Transient amplification enhances the persistence of tropicalising coral populations in marginal high latitude environments

Cited by 5 publications

References 120 publications

Life history mediates the trade‐offs among different components of demographic resilience

Life history mediates the trade‐offs among different components of demographic resilience

Coral assemblages at higher latitudes favour short-term potential over long-term performance

Recent exposure to environmental stochasticity does not determine the resilience of natural populations

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