Molluscan subfossil assemblages reveal the long-term deterioration of coral reef environments in Caribbean Panama

Cramer, Katie L.; Leonard‐Pingel, Jill S.; Rodriguez, Felix A.; Jackson, Jeremy B. C.

doi:10.1016/j.marpolbul.2015.05.031

Cited by 24 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 54 publications

(75 reference statements)

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“…1b). increases in turbidity and nutrification) beginning at least a century ago (Cramer et al 2015). increases in turbidity and nutrification) beginning at least a century ago (Cramer et al 2015).…”

Section: Collection and Processing Of Reef Matrix Coresmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Widespread coral mortality in the Caribbean and elsewhere has been linked to elevated sea surface temperatures from global climate change (Harvell et al 2002, Donner et al 2007, Hughes et al 2007, Randall and van Woesik 2015, algal overgrowth from overexploitation of herbivorous reef fishes (Gladfelter 1982, Hughes 1994, Brown 1997, and increases in land-based runoff (Hunter andEvans 1995, Fabricius et al 2005). Fishing and land clearing activities have been altering reef communities and environments for centuries to millennia: exploitation of Caribbean reef megafauna, fishes and invertebrates began centuries before European contact (Jackson 1997, Wing and Wing 2001, Pandolfi et al 2003, McClenachan et al 2006, McClenachan and Cooper 2008, O'Dea et al 2014, early intensive agricultural activities had degraded coral and mollusk communities on some reefs 1-4 centuries before disease and bleaching outbreaks (Lewis 1984, Cramer et al 2012, 2015, and a loss of parrotfish over prehistorical and historical time resulted in declines in reef accretion in Bocas del Toro, Panama (Cramer et al 2017). Fishing and land clearing activities have been altering reef communities and environments for centuries to millennia: exploitation of Caribbean reef megafauna, fishes and invertebrates began centuries before European contact (Jackson 1997, Wing and Wing 2001, Pandolfi et al 2003, McClenachan et al 2006, McClenachan and Cooper 2008, O'Dea et al 2014, early intensive agricultural activities had degraded coral and mollusk communities on some reefs 1-4 centuries before disease and bleaching outbreaks (Lewis 1984, Cramer et al 2012, 2015, and a loss of parrotfish over prehistorical and historical time resulted in declines in reef accretion in Bocas del Toro, Panama …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Millennial‐scale change in the structure of a Caribbean reef ecosystem and the role of human and natural disturbance

et al. 2019

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Caribbean coral reefs have transformed into algal-dominated habitats over the past half-century, but the role of specific anthropogenic drivers is unresolved due to the lack of ecosystem-level data predating human disturbance. To better understand the extent and causes of long-term Caribbean reef declines, we produced a continuous 3000-yr record of the ecosystem state of three reefs in Bocas del Toro, Caribbean Panama. From fossils and sediments obtained from reef matrix cores, we tracked changes in reef accretion rates and the taxonomic and functional group composition of fish, coral, urchin, bivalve and benthic foraminifera. This dataset provided a comprehensive picture of reef community and environmental change. At all sites, reefs shifted from systems with greater relative abundance of herbivorous fish, epifaunal suspension feeding bivalves and Diadema urchins to systems with greater relative abundance of micropredator fish, infaunal bivalves and Echinometra urchins. These transitions were initiated a millennium ago at two less-degraded reefs fringing offshore islands and ~250 yr ago at a degraded patch reef near the continental coast. Ecosystem shifts were accompanied by a decline in reef accretion rates, and at the patch reef, a decline in water quality since the 18th century. Within all cores, synchronous increases in infaunal bivalves and declines in herbivorous fish regardless of water quality suggest a loss of hard substrate and increasingly hypoxic sediment conditions related to herbivore loss. While the early timing of ecosystem transitions at the fringing reefs implicates large-scale hydrological change, the more recent timing of change and loss of water quality at the patch reef implicates terrigenous runoff from land-clearing. Our whole-ecosystem reconstruction reveals that reef ecosystem deterioration appears to follow a predictable trajectory whether driven by natural or anthropogenic disturbances and that historical local human activities have quickly unraveled reefs at a scale similar to longer-term natural environmental change.

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Section: Collection and Processing Of Reef Matrix Coresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Millennial‐scale change in the structure of a Caribbean reef ecosystem and the role of human and natural disturbance

et al. 2019

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“…1). A previous analysis of change in coral and molluscan subfossil assemblages spanning from approximately 1900 AD to present from pits excavated at Punta Donato revealed that this site first experienced significant declines in reef water quality at least a century ago (Cramer et al 2012(Cramer et al , 2015. To prevent damaging living corals, we collected cores from rubble zones on the reef slope adjacent to living coral colonies.…”

Section: Collection and Processing Of Reef Matrix Coresmentioning

confidence: 99%

A 3000 year record of Caribbean reef urchin communities reveals causes and consequences of long‐term decline in Diadema antillarum

et al. 2017

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Urchins are the last abundant grazers of macroalgae on most Caribbean reefs following the historical overexploitation of herbivorous fishes. The long-spined urchin Diadema antillarum was particularly effective at controlling macroalgae and facilitating coral dominance on Caribbean reefs until its ecological extinction from a catastrophic disease epidemic in the early 1980s. Despite their important role in the structure and functioning of Caribbean reef ecosystems, the natural dynamics of Caribbean reef urchin communities are poorly known due to the paucity of ecological survey data prior to large-scale human disturbances and the Diadema dieoff. To help resolve the baseline abundances and ecological roles of common urchin taxa, we track changes in urchin abundance and composition over the past 3000 yr from analysis of subfossil urchin spines preserved in reef matrix cores collected in Caribbean Panama. Echinometra consistently dominated the subfossil spine assemblage, while Diadema was consistently rare in the subfossil record in this region. Rather than increasing during a period of heightened human exploitation of their fish competitors and predators, Diadema began declining over a millennium ago. Convergent cross mapping (CCM) causality analyses reveal that Diadema abundance is causally related to coral community composition. Diadema is negatively affected by Acropora cervicornis dominance, likely due to the tight association between this coral and the threespot damselfish, an effective Diadema competitor. Conversely, Diadema positively affects the abundance of the coral Madracis mirabilis, possibly via its control of macroalgae. Causal relationships were not detected among abundances of individual urchin taxa, indicating that inter-specific echinoid competition is not a factor limiting Diadema recovery. Our detailed record of prehistorical and historical urchin community dynamics suggests that the failure of Diadema to recover over 30 yr after its mass mortality event may be due in part to the prey release of damselfish following the long-term overfishing of piscivorous fishes.

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“…These more disturbed or impacted reefs can then become dominated by stress-tolerant corals and corals that quickly colonize areas after a perturbation (i.e., weedy corals) [13, 29, 30, 57], as observed in the current study (Fig 4). Historical and/or geological investigation of reef assemblages (i.e., through pit excavating or coring of reef framework [9, 32, 34]) would be a useful next step, as it would allow insight into how reef communities within the three thermal regimes have changed after disturbances and over long periods of time.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A shift from dominance of competitive and generalist species to weedy and stress tolerant species occurred on Okinawan reefs following the 1998 El Niño bleaching event [29, 30] and an overall decline in coral cover and abundance currently occurring in the Caribbean has been coupled with an increase in abundance of weedy species [27, 31]. Interestingly, fossil assemblages from excavated pits on reefs in Panama reveal that mortality and changes in reef communities caused by anthropogenic impact (such as land clearing and overfishing) predate mass bleaching events, indicating that other sub-lethal stressors can impact coral community structure [32–34]. Collectively, evidence suggests that differential responses between coral species to increasing anthropogenic stressors may lead to community scale shifts in reef composition from dominance of competitive and generalist species to dominance of stress tolerant and weedy species.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Temperature Regimes Impact Coral Assemblages along Environmental Gradients on Lagoonal Reefs in Belize

et al. 2016

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Coral reefs are increasingly threatened by global and local anthropogenic stressors such as rising seawater temperature, nutrient enrichment, sedimentation, and overfishing. Although many studies have investigated the impacts of local and global stressors on coral reefs, we still do not fully understand how these stressors influence coral community structure, particularly across environmental gradients on a reef system. Here, we investigate coral community composition across three different temperature and productivity regimes along a nearshore-offshore gradient on lagoonal reefs of the Belize Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System (MBRS). A novel metric was developed using ultra-high-resolution satellite-derived estimates of sea surface temperatures (SST) to classify reefs as exposed to low (lowTP), moderate (modTP), or high (highTP) temperature parameters over 10 years (2003 to 2012). Coral species richness, abundance, diversity, density, and percent cover were lower at highTP sites relative to lowTP and modTP sites, but these coral community traits did not differ significantly between lowTP and modTP sites. Analysis of coral life history strategies revealed that highTP sites were dominated by hardy stress-tolerant and fast-growing weedy coral species, while lowTP and modTP sites consisted of competitive, generalist, weedy, and stress-tolerant coral species. Satellite-derived estimates of Chlorophyll-a (chl-a) were obtained for 13-years (2003–2015) as a proxy for primary production. Chl-a concentrations were highest at highTP sites, medial at modTP sites, and lowest at lowTP sites. Notably, thermal parameters correlated better with coral community traits between site types than productivity, suggesting that temperature (specifically number of days above the thermal bleaching threshold) played a greater role in defining coral community structure than productivity on the MBRS. Dominance of weedy and stress-tolerant genera at highTP sites suggests that corals utilizing these two life history strategies may be better suited to cope with warmer oceans and thus may warrant protective status under climate change.

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Molluscan subfossil assemblages reveal the long-term deterioration of coral reef environments in Caribbean Panama

Cited by 24 publications

References 54 publications

Millennial‐scale change in the structure of a Caribbean reef ecosystem and the role of human and natural disturbance

Millennial‐scale change in the structure of a Caribbean reef ecosystem and the role of human and natural disturbance

A 3000 year record of Caribbean reef urchin communities reveals causes and consequences of long‐term decline in Diadema antillarum

Temperature Regimes Impact Coral Assemblages along Environmental Gradients on Lagoonal Reefs in Belize

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