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PeerJ
2020 Jan 01;8:e10080. doi: 10.7717/peerj.10080.
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Spatial benthic community analysis of shallow coral reefs to support coastal management in Culebra Island, Puerto Rico.
Gómez-Andújar NX
,
Hernandez-Delgado EA
.
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Caribbean coral reefs provide essential ecosystem services to society, including fisheries, tourism and shoreline protection from coastal erosion. However, these reefs are also exhibiting major declining trends, leading to the evolution of novel ecosystems dominated by non-reef building taxa, with potentially altered ecological functions. In the search for effective management strategies, this study characterized coral reefs in front of a touristic beach which provides economic benefits to the surrounding coastal communities yet faces increasing anthropogenic pressures and conservation challenges. Haphazard photo-transects were used to address spatial variation patterns in the reef's benthic community structure in eight locations. Statistically significant differences were found with increasing distance from the shoreline, reef rugosity, Diadema antillarum density, among reef locations, and as a function of recreational use. Nearshore reefs reflected higher percent macroalgal cover, likely due to increased exposure from both recreational activities and nearby unsustainable land-use practices. However, nearshore reefs still support a high abundance of the endangered reef-building coral Orbicella annularis, highlighting the need to conserve these natural shoreline protectors. There is an opportunity for local stakeholders and regulatory institutions to collaboratively implement sea-urchin propagation, restoration of endangered Acroporid coral populations, and zoning of recreational densities across reefs. Our results illustrate vulnerable reef hotspots where these management interventions are needed and recommend guidelines to address them.
Figure 1. Location of the study area.(a) Caribbean Region. (b) Culebra Island in relation to the archipelago of Puerto Rico. (c) Flamenco Bay in relation to Culebra Island. (d) Beginning and end of the 10 m sampling transects as GPS waypoints, colored and labeled with a unique letter to represent each reef locality. Note that upper-case letters correspond to the reef sites sampled, while lower-case letter refer to the figure panels.
Figure 2. Major benthic components in coral reef localities across Flamenco bay, shown in mean percent cover.(a) Scleractinian cover. (b) Octocoral cover. (c) Macroalgae cover. (d) Cyanobacteria cover. Arrow bars represent the 95% confidence intervals. Refer to Fig. S2 for less abundant benthic components.
Figure 3. Metric Dimensional Scaling (MDS) plot of transects grouped into localities and plotted with bubbles according to the quantity of observed recreationists.Colors denote the classifications between distance from the shoreline and the D. antillarum Index. Overall, nearshore locality C stands out as high in human use and critical sea-urchin herbivory, explaining its high macroalgae cover.
Figure 4. Bubble plots based on PCO analysis describing the spatial patterns of critically endangered coral species among locations.(a) Acropora palmata. (b) Acropora cervicornis.
Figure 5. Inverse distance weighting (IDW) spatial interpolations of twelve ecological parameters in Flamenco Bay.Parameters are grouped into three columns according to their characteristics. IDW layers are masked over aggregate substrate reefs, as mapped by Kågesten et al., 2015. Refer to Table S6 for input parameters and cross-validation results. Note that upper-case letters correspond to the reef sites sampled, while lower-case letter refer to the figure panels. (a) Species richness, (b) Species diversity, (c) Hard coral recruitment density, (d) Abundance of coral diseases, (e) Percent of live coral cover, (f) Percent of macroalgal cover, (g) Percent of cyanobacteria cover, (h) Percent of crustose coralline algae cover, (i) Abundance of A. cervicornis, (j) Abundance of A. palmata, (k) Abundance of D. antillarum, (l) Reef rugosity index.
Figure 6. Land-based source of pollution to Flamenco Bay from deforested hillsides and unpaved roads responding to unsustainable land use practices in 2017.North-facing (a) and east-facing (b) views before the rainy season on 24th August. North-facing (c) and east-facing (d) views of sediment plumes on 7th November. (e) South-facing view of a suspended sediment plume dispersing over coral reefs. (f) Terrestrial sediment input adjacent to locality C. Photo credit: J. Acevedo.
Figure 7. Localities shaped according to a continuous geomorphic structure of aggregate reef and classified according to the Coral Reef Resilience Index (CRRI).The CRRI is a consists of 15 indicators grouped into a either a Coral Index, Threatened Species Index and Algal Index, where the final mean value is deemed as very good (4.2–5), good (3.4–4.2), fair (2.6–3.4), poor (1.8–2.6) and critical (1–1.8). Refer to Table S7 for details.
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