Holbrook SJ et al. (2018), Recruitment Drives Spatial Variation in Recover...

ECB-ART-46328

Sci Rep 2018 May 09;81:7338. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-25414-8.

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Recruitment Drives Spatial Variation in Recovery Rates of Resilient Coral Reefs.

Holbrook SJ , Adam TC , Edmunds PJ , Schmitt RJ , Carpenter RC , Brooks AJ , Lenihan HS , Briggs CJ .

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Tropical reefs often undergo acute disturbances that result in landscape-scale loss of coral. Due to increasing threats to coral reefs from climate change and anthropogenic perturbations, it is critical to understand mechanisms that drive recovery of these ecosystems. We explored this issue on the fore reef of Moorea, French Polynesia, following a crown-of-thorns seastar outbreak and cyclone that dramatically reduced cover of coral. During the five-years following the disturbances, the rate of re-establishment of coral cover differed systematically around the triangular-shaped island; coral cover returned most rapidly at sites where the least amount of live coral remained after the disturbances. Although sites differed greatly in the rate of return of coral, all showed at least some evidence of re-assembly to their pre-disturbance community structure in terms of relative abundance of coral taxa and other benthic space holders. The primary driver of spatial variation in recovery was recruitment of sexually-produced corals; subsequent growth and survivorship were less important in shaping the spatial pattern. Our findings suggest that, although the coral community has been resilient, some areas are unlikely to attain the coral cover and taxonomic structure they had prior to the most recent disturbances before the advent of another landscape-scale perturbation.

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	Figure 1. Spatial variation in mean (±SE) percent cover of live coral at 10 m depth at 6 fore reef sites around Moorea (n ~ 40 quadrats year−1 site−1), showing: (1) almost complete loss of coral cover at all 6 sites, and (2) strong spatial variation in rate of return of coral cover. Map of Moorea was based on an original image (ISS006-E-39837) provided courtesy of the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, NASA Johnson Space Center (https://eol.jsc.nasa.gov) and was modified using Adobe Photoshop Elements v14.1 and Microsoft PowerPoint 2016.
	Figure 2. Spatial pattern in mean (±SE) density of coral recruits (colonies ≤3 cm diameter) at 10 m depth around Moorea based on diver surveys of 25 m2 plots. The magnitude of coral recruitment following 2010 varied sharply among sites, and the pattern mirrors the pattern of variation in recovery of live coral cover (Fig. 1). Map of Moorea was based on an original image (ISS006-E-39837) provided courtesy of the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, NASA Johnson Space Center (https://eol.jsc.nasa.gov) and was modified using Adobe Photoshop Elements v14.1 and Microsoft PowerPoint 2016.
	Figure 3. Relationship between the cumulative number of Pocillopora recruits per m2 from 2011 to 2014 and the rate of return of coral cover at 6 sites around Moorea. Line shows fit from least squares linear regression. N = 48,203 recruits observed during the time period at the six sites.
	Figure 4. Variation among sites around Moorea in annual mean (±SE) survivorship (a) and mean (±SE) growth rates (b) of Pocillopora recruits. Variation in survivorship and growth did not match the spatial pattern in return of cover of live coral; these mechanisms appear insufficient to explain the observed variation among sites in return of coral.
	Figure 5. Variation in coral reef community structure between 2005 and 2015, during which corallivory by COTS and Cyclone Oli depressed coral cover close to zero by 2010. Variation in community structure is shown for one site on each side of the island (LTER 1 – north shore, LTER 6 – west shore, and LTER 3 – east shore) to illustrate spatial variation in rate of recovery. (a) Mean cover (±SE, n = 36–40 quadrats) of scleractinians and Millepora at the three sites. (b–d) NMDS plots based on analysis of community structure with (b) functional groups (c) coral taxa, and (d) algal taxa. Circles are scaled to show mean cover in each year of (b) scleractinians and Millepora, (c) Pocillopora spp. and (d) turf algae. Green = first year of analysis and red = last year of analysis.

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Adam, How will coral reef fish communities respond to climate-driven disturbances? Insight from landscape-scale perturbations. 2014, Pubmed, Echinobase