Environmental limits to coral reef development: Where do we draw the line?

SYNOPSIS. Understanding how reefs vary over the present ranges of environmental conditions is key to understanding how coral reefs will adapt to a changing environment. Global environmental data of temperature, salinity, light, carbonate saturation state, and nutrients were recently compiled for nearly 1,000 reef locations. These data were statistically analyzed to (1) re-define environmental limits over which reefs exist today, (2) identify “marginal” reefs; i.e., those that exist near or beyond “normal” environmental limits of reef distribution, and (3) broadly classify reefs based on these major environmental variables. Temperature and salinity limits to coral reefs, as determined by this analysis, are very near those determined by previous researchers; but precise nutrient levels that could be considered limiting to coral reefs were not obvious at the scale of this analysis. However, in contrast to many previous studies that invoke low temperature as the reef-limiting factor at higher latitudes, this study indicates that reduced aragonite saturation and light penetration, both of which covary with temperature, may also be limiting. Identification of “marginal” reef environments, and a new classification of reefs based on suites of environmental conditions, provide an improved global perspective toward predicting how reefs will respond to changing environmental conditions.

[1]  Richard W. Reynolds,et al.  An Improved Real-Time Global Sea Surface Temperature Analysis , 1993 .

[2]  P. Hallock,et al.  Nutrient excess and the demise of coral reefs and carbonate platforms , 1986 .

[3]  S. Levitus.  Climatological Atlas of the World Ocean , 1982 .

[4]  Y. Iryu,et al.  Distribution of marine organisms and its geological significance in the modern reef complex of the Ryukyu Islands , 1995 .

[5]  Thomas M. Smith,et al.  A High-Resolution Global Sea Surface Temperature Climatology , 1995 .

[6]  T. W. Vaughan,et al.  The Formation of Coral Reefs@@@Corals and the Formation of Coral Reefs , 1920 .

[7]  P. Hallock,et al.  The role of nutrient availability in bioerosion: Consequences to carbonate buildups , 1988 .

[8]  A. J. Watson,et al.  Testing the iron hypothesis in ecosystems of the equatorial Pacific Ocean , 1994, Nature.

[9]  H. Kan,et al.  The evolution of narrow reef flats at high-latitude in the Ryukyu Islands , 1995, Coral Reefs.

[10]  R. Buddemeier,et al.  Coral Adaptation and Acclimatization: A Most Ingenious Paradox , 1999 .

[11]  Rachel T. Pinker,et al.  Global distribution of photosynthetically active radiation as observed from satellites , 1992 .

[12]  P. Harrison,et al.  The coral communities of Lord Howe Island , 1995 .

[13]  W. Schlager,et al.  Computer simulation of reef growth , 1992 .

[14]  J. Veron.  A biogeographic database of hermatypic coral species of the central Indo-Pacific, genera of the world , 1993 .

[15]  J. Milliman,et al.  Carbonate lithofacies as paleolatitude indicators: problems and limitations , 1988 .

[16]  S. V. Smith.  The Houtman Abrolhos Islands: Carbon metabolism of coral reefs at high latitude1 , 1981 .

[17]  B. Lapointe,et al.  Macroalgal overgrowth of fringing coral reefs at Discovery Bay, Jamaica: bottom-up versus top-down control , 1997 .

[18]  R. Pinker,et al.  Modeling Surface Solar Irradiance for Satellite Applications on a Global Scale , 1992 .

[19]  B. Chalker,et al.  Simulating light-saturation curves for photosynthesis and calcification by reef-building corals , 1981 .

[20]  C. Sweeney,et al.  Effect of calcium carbonate saturation state on the calcification rate of an experimental coral reef , 2000 .

[21]  Robert W. Buddemeier,et al.  Effect of calcium carbonate saturation of seawater on coral calcification , 1998 .

[22]  D. Schiel,et al.  Depth distribution and abundance of benthic organisms and fishes at the subtropical Kermadec Islands , 1986 .

[23]  R. Buddemeier,et al.  Global change and coral reef ecosystems , 1992 .

[24]  Denis Allemand,et al.  Photosynthesis and Calcification at Cellular, Organismal and Community Levels in Coral Reefs: A Review on Interactions and Control by Carbonate Chemistry , 1999 .

[25]  G. Watts,et al.  Climate Change 1995 , 1998 .

[26]  L. Bernstein.  Effects of salinity. , 1976, Science.

[27]  D. Kinsey,et al.  Metabolism, calcification and carbon production - seminer discussion , 1985 .

[28]  G. A. Heiss.  Carbonate production by scleractinian corals at Aqaba, Gulf of Aqaba, Red Sea , 1995 .

[29]  J. Cortés,et al.  Biology and geology of eastern Pacific coral reefs , 1997, Coral Reefs.

[30]  J. P. Bruce,et al.  Climate change 1995 , 1996 .

[31]  S. Levitus,et al.  Distribution of nitrate, phosphate and silicate in the world oceans , 1993 .

[32]  R. W. Austin,et al.  The Determination of the Diffuse Attenuation Coefficient of Sea Water Using the Coastal Zone Color Scanner , 1981 .

[33]  J. Kleypas,et al.  Modeled estimates of global reef habitat and carbonate production since the Last Glacial Maximum , 1997 .

[34]  D. Kinsey.  Metabolism, calcification and carbon production. I. System level studies , 1985 .

[35]  Z. Dubinsky,et al.  Evolution and zoogeography of coral reefs , 1990 .

[36]  David Archer,et al.  An atlas of the distribution of calcium carbonate in sediments of the deep sea , 1996 .

[37]  L. Disalvo,et al.  Ecological reconnaissance of the easter island south pacific sublittoral marine environment , 1988 .

[38]  B. Riegl,et al.  Structure of Africa's southernmost coral communities , 1995 .

[39]  P. Harrison,et al.  Patterns of coral community structure of subtropical reefs in the Solitary Islands Marine Reserve, Eastern Australia , 1994 .

[40]  J. Houghton,et al.  Climate change 1995: the science of climate change. , 1996 .

[41]  A. Mucci.  The solubility of calcite and aragonite in seawater at various salinities , 1983 .

[42]  Hemmo Bosscher,et al.  CARBPLAT—A computer model to simulate the development of carbonate platforms , 1992 .

[43]  B. Wilkinson,et al.  Carbonate mineral saturation state and cratonic limestone accumulation , 1993 .