Riegl BM et al. (2012), Red Sea coral reef trajectories over 2 decades ...

ECB-ART-42466

PLoS One 2012 Jan 01;75:e38396. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0038396.

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Red Sea coral reef trajectories over 2 decades suggest increasing community homogenization and decline in coral size.

Riegl BM , Bruckner AW , Rowlands GP , Purkis SJ , Renaud P .

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Three independent line intercept transect surveys on northern Red Sea reef slopes conducted in 1988/9 and 1997/8 in Egypt and from 2006-9 in Saudi Arabia were used to compare community patterns and coral size. Coral communities showed scale-dependent variability, highest at fine spatial and taxonomic scale (species-specific within and among reef patterns). At coarser scale (generic pattern across regions), patterns were more uniform (regionally consistent generic dominance on differently exposed reef slopes and at different depths). Neither fine- nor coarse-scale patterns aligned along the sampled 1700 km latitudinal gradient. Thus, a latitudinal gradient that had been described earlier from comparable datasets, separating the Red Sea into three faunistic zones, was no longer apparent. This may indicate subtle changes in species distributions. Coral size, measured as corrected average intercept of corals in transects, had decreased from 1997 to 2009, after having remained constant from 1988 to 1997. Recruitment had remained stable (∼12 juvenile corals per m(2)). Size distributions had not changed significantly but large corals had declined over 20 years. Thus, data from a wide range of sites taken over two decades support claims by others that climate change is indeed beginning to show clear effects on Red Sea reefs.

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Genes referenced: LOC100887844 LOC115925415

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References [+] :

Cantin, Ocean warming slows coral growth in the central Red Sea. 2010, Pubmed

	Figure 1. Location of sampling sites in the Red Sea.Red stars = transect surveys 2006, 2008, 2009; blue crosses = transect surveys 1988, 1989, 1997; green crosses = squares of 1997. Sites in Egypt from the Gulf of Suez to Ras Banas from [5], [18], [20]; Sites in Sudan (purple circles) from [13], [17], [26] were used to compare validity of results.
	Figure 2. (a) Variation of recorded species richness among sites.(b) Abundance distribution (log) of the 21 most common (>1% of total species occurrences) species encountered in all transects ranked by their relative contribution to total intercept. The species constributing most to total intercept was Porites lutea (Table 1). No significant differences (X2 = 2.6, df = 15, p>0.25) (c) Size distribution of individual intercepts. No significant differences (X2 = 0.14, df = 18, p>0.25).
	Figure 3. Grouping of transects based on species presence/absence.All clusters include transects from all geographic locations. Euclidian distance with Ward's method of linkage.
	Figure 4. Summary statistics of transects from each survey area (Northern Islands = 1988/9, 1997; Farasan Islands = 2006; Yanbu area and Al Wajh Banks = 2008; Farasan Banks = 2009).