Climate Change, Coral Loss, and the Curious Case of the Parrotfish Paradigm: Why Don't Marine Protected Areas Improve Reef Resilience?

Bruno, John F.; Côté, Isabelle M.; Toth, Lauren T.

doi:10.1146/annurev-marine-010318-095300

Cited by 230 publications

(160 citation statements)

References 173 publications

(200 reference statements)

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“…The findings in this study reinforce the idea that coral reef conservation depends on a suite of management strategies, including both local and global strategies , Mcleod et al 2019. Although warming oceans constitute the primary threat to corals by causing bleaching events and disease outbreaks (Muller et al 2008, Weil and Rogers 2011, Hughes et al 2018, Bruno et al 2019), local environmental factors may interact with temperature to influence coral health. Depending on the nature of this interaction, local factors may provide new targets for ameliorating the impacts of warming oceans on octocorals, scleractinian corals, and other important reef invertebrates (Ban et al 2014, Côt e et al 2016).…”

Section: Conclusion and Management Implicationssupporting

confidence: 77%

Warming and pollutants interact to modulate octocoral immunity and shape disease outcomes

Tracy

Weil

Harvell

2019

Ecological Applications

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Warming environments can alter the outcome of host–parasite relationships with important consequences for biodiversity. Warming often increases disease risk, and interactions with other environmental factors can intensify impacts by modifying the underlying mechanisms, such as host immunity. In coastal ecosystems, metal pollution is a pervasive stressor that influences disease and immunity in many organisms. Despite the crisis facing coral reefs, which stems in part from warming‐associated disease outbreaks, the impacts of metal pollutants on scleractinian and octocoral disease are largely unknown. We investigated how warming oceans and copper pollution affect host immunity and disease risk for two diseases of the abundant Caribbean octocoral, the sea fan Gorgonia ventalina. Field surveys across a sediment copper concentration gradient in Puerto Rico, USA revealed that cellular immunity of sea fans increased by 12.6% at higher sediment copper concentrations, while recovery from multifocal purple spots disease (MFPS) tended to decrease. MFPS severity in the field increased at warmer sites. In a controlled laboratory experiment, sea fans were inoculated with live cultures of a labyrinthulid parasite to test the interactive effects of temperature and copper on immune activation. As in the field, higher copper induced greater immunity, but the factorial design of the experiment revealed that copper and temperature interacted to modulate the immune response to the parasite: immune cell densities increased with elevated temperature at lower copper concentrations, but not with high copper concentrations. Tissue damage was also greater in treatments with higher copper and warmer temperatures. Field and lab evidence confirm that elevated copper hinders sea fan immune defenses against damaging parasites. Temperature and copper influenced host–pathogen interactions in octocorals by modulating immunity, disease severity, and disease recovery. This is the first evidence that metal pollution affects processes influencing disease in octocorals and highlights the importance of immune mechanisms in environmentally mediated disease outbreaks. Although coral conservation efforts must include a focus on global factors, such as rapid warming, reducing copper and other pollutants that compromise coral health on a local scale may help corals fight disease in a warming ocean.

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Section: Conclusion and Management Implicationssupporting

confidence: 77%

Warming and pollutants interact to modulate octocoral immunity and shape disease outcomes

Tracy

Weil

Harvell

2019

Ecological Applications

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“…While there are differing views on the effectiveness of managing parrotfish abundance to promote reef resilience in the western Atlantic region (Adam et al 2015;Bozec et al 2016;Steneck et al 2018;Bruno et al 2019), our results highlight the importance of balancing any ecological benefits of herbivore management against the potential cost of increased bioerosion. What is clear is that more direct measurements are badly needed to empirically improve our prediction of the erosional side of the carbonatebudget equation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 75%

Improving estimates of coral reef construction and erosion with in situ measurements

Kuffner

Toth

Hudson

et al. 2019

Limnology & Oceanography

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The decline in living coral since the 1970s has conspicuously slowed reef construction on a global scale, but the related process of reef erosion is less visible and not often quantified. Here, we present new data on the constructional and deconstructional sides of the carbonate‐budget equation in the Florida Keys, U.S.A. We documented Orbicella spp. calcification rates at four offshore reefs and quantified decadal‐scale rates of Orbicella‐reef erosion at a mid‐shore patch reef. Using Orbicella coral heads fitted with permanent markers in 1998, we measured reef‐elevation loss at 28 stations over 17.3 yr to estimate a mean erosion rate of −5.5 (± 3.2, SD) mm yr−1. This loss equates to an erosion rate of −8.2 (± 4.8, SD) kg m−2 yr−1 on dead Orbicella colonies, or −6.6 kg m−2 yr−1 when adjusted reef‐wide. Calculating net carbonate production using a census‐based approach on the same patch reef in 2017, we estimated a reef‐wide bioerosion rate of −1.9 (± 2.0, SD) kg m−2 yr−1, and a net carbonate production rate of 0.5 (± 0.3, SD) kg m−2 yr−1. Substituting the erosion rate we estimated with the markers would suggest that net carbonate production at this patch reef was lower and negative, −4.2 kg m−2 yr−1. This divergence could be a function of high erosion rates measured on the tops of Orbicella colonies, which may be preferentially targeted by parrotfish. Nonetheless, our study suggests the need for new field data to improve estimates of reef‐structure persistence as coral reefs continue to degrade.

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“…Protection of reefs requires effective management plans that can mitigate the negative impacts of local and global stressors and conserve ecosystem functioning. Much is known about the major threats to coral reefs, including climate change and overfishing (Graham et al 2015;Bruno et al 2019), and several key species living on coral reefs have been identified (Bellwood et al 2004;Alvarez-Filip et al 2009;Brandl et al 2019). However, there is much less clarity about what exactly a functioning coral reef is and how it is influenced by the hyperdiverse communities that make coral reefs one of the most remarkable ecosystems on the planet.…”

Section: Front Ecol Environmentioning

confidence: 99%

Coral reef ecosystem functioning: eight core processes and the role of biodiversity

Brandl

Rasher

Côté

et al. 2019

Frontiers in Ecol & Environ

214

177

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Coral reefs are in global decline. Reversing this trend is a primary management objective but doing so depends on understanding what keeps reefs in desirable states (ie “functional”). Although there is evidence that coral reefs thrive under certain conditions (eg moderate water temperatures, limited fishing pressure), the dynamic processes that promote ecosystem functioning and its internal drivers (ie community structure) are poorly defined and explored. Specifically, despite decades of research suggesting a positive relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning across biomes, few studies have explored this relationship in coral reef systems. We propose a practical definition of coral reef functioning, centered on eight complementary ecological processes: calcium carbonate production and bioerosion, primary production and herbivory, secondary production and predation, and nutrient uptake and release. Connecting research on species niches, functional diversity of communities, and rates of the eight key processes can provide a novel, quantitative understanding of reef functioning and its dependence on coral reef communities that will chart the transition of coral reefs in the Anthropocene. This will contribute urgently needed guidance for the management of these important ecosystems.

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Climate Change, Coral Loss, and the Curious Case of the Parrotfish Paradigm: Why Don't Marine Protected Areas Improve Reef Resilience?

Cited by 230 publications

References 173 publications

Warming and pollutants interact to modulate octocoral immunity and shape disease outcomes

Warming and pollutants interact to modulate octocoral immunity and shape disease outcomes

Improving estimates of coral reef construction and erosion with in situ measurements

Coral reef ecosystem functioning: eight core processes and the role of biodiversity

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