The future of resilience-based management in coral reef ecosystems

McLeod, Elizabeth; Anthony, Kenneth R. N.; Mumby, Peter J.; Maynard, Jeffrey; Beeden, Roger; Graham, Nicholas A. J.; Heron, Scott F.; Høegh-Guldberg, Ove; Jupiter, Stacy D.; MacGowan, Petra; Mangubhai, Sangeeta; Marshall, Nadine; Marshall, Paul; McClanahan, Tim R.; McLeod, Karen L.; Nyström, Magnus; Obura, David; Parker, B. A.; Possingham, Hugh P.; Salm, Rodney V.; Tamelander, Jerker

doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2018.11.034

Cited by 170 publications

(167 citation statements)

References 137 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

153

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…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.…”

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

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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.

show abstract

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

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…We also showed that limiting human‐derived sources of nutrients in areas linked to coral reefs limits coral exposure to nutrient discharge and may reduce vulnerability to coral bleaching (McLeod ). For instance, the wastewater injection well resulted in less human‐derived nutrient discharge and a smaller impact footprint compared to septic systems for the same amount of development.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 83%

Place‐based management can reduce human impacts on coral reefs in a changing climate

Delevaux

Stamoulis

Whittier

et al. 2019

Ecological Applications

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Declining natural resources have contributed to a cultural renaissance across the Pacific that seeks to revive customary ridge‐to‐reef management approaches to protect freshwater and restore abundant coral reef fisheries. We applied a linked land–sea modeling framework based on remote sensing and empirical data, which couples groundwater nutrient export and coral reef models at fine spatial resolution. This spatially explicit (60 × 60 m) framework simultaneously tracks changes in multiple benthic and fish indicators as a function of community‐led marine closures, land‐use and climate change scenarios. We applied this framework in Hā‘ena and Ka‘ūpūlehu, located at opposite ends of the Hawaiian Archipelago to investigate the effects of coastal development and marine closures on coral reefs in the face of climate change. Our results indicated that projected coastal development and bleaching can result in a significant decrease in benthic habitat quality and community‐led marine closures can result in a significant increase in fish biomass. In general, Ka‘ūpūlehu is more vulnerable to land‐based nutrients and coral bleaching than Hā‘ena due to high coral cover and limited dilution and mixing from low rainfall and wave power, except for the shallow and wave‐sheltered back‐reef areas of Hā‘ena, which support high coral cover and act as nursery habitat for fishes. By coupling spatially explicit land–sea models with scenario planning, we identified priority areas on land where upgrading cesspools can reduce human impacts on coral reefs in the face of projected climate change impacts.

show abstract

“…Most coral models have been developed to describe the effect of external drivers (mainly disturbances) on the state of the coral community (usually total cover) (e.g., Melbourne-Thomas et al 2011a, Madin et al 2012b, Bozec and Mumby 2015, Kubicek and Reuter 2016). In contrast, few models exist that assess the influences of aspects of diversity on community or ecosystem dynamics (e.g., Tam and Ang 2012, Ortiz et al 2014, Fabina et al 2015), but these have represented diversity with limited detail, and consequently have little capacity to evaluate the effects of identity and diversity on ecosystem functioning (Brandl et al, 2019), or the effects of functional redundancy and response diversity on ecosystem resilience (Mcleod et al, 2019). In contrast, our model represents diversity in detail — we considered eleven functional traits and included their influence over eight ecological processes applied to 798 functionally realistic species.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A spatially explicit and mechanistic model for exploring coral reef dynamics

Carturan

Maréchal²,

Bradshaw

et al. 2020

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

21The complexity of coral-reef ecosystems makes it challenging to predict their dynamics 22 and resilience under future disturbance regimes. Models for coral-reef dynamics do not 23 adequately accounts for the high functional diversity exhibited by corals. Models that are 24 ecologically and mechanistically detailed are therefore required to simulate the ecological 25 processes driving coral reef dynamics. Here we describe a novel model that includes 26 processes at different spatial scales, and the contribution of species' functional diversity 27 to benthic-community dynamics. We calibrated and validated the model to reproduce 28 observed dynamics using empirical data from Caribbean reefs. The model exhibits 29 realistic community dynamics, and individual population dynamics are ecologically 30 plausible. A global sensitivity analysis revealed that the number of larvae produced 31 locally, and interaction-induced reductions in growth rate are the parameters with the 32 largest influence on community dynamics. The model provides a platform for virtual 33 experiments to explore diversity-functioning relationships in coral reefs. 34 35

show abstract

The future of resilience-based management in coral reef ecosystems

Cited by 170 publications

References 137 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

Place‐based management can reduce human impacts on coral reefs in a changing climate

A spatially explicit and mechanistic model for exploring coral reef dynamics

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About