Operationalizing the Resilience of Coral Reefs in an Era of Climate Change

Ecosystem management frequently aims to manage resilience yet measuring resilience has proven difficult. Here, we quantify the ecological resilience of the largest reef in the Caribbean and map potential benefits of marine reserves under two scenarios of greenhouse gas emissions. Resilience is calculated using spatial ecological models and defined as the probability of a reef remaining in its coral-dominated basin of attraction such that it does not flip into an alternate, algal-dominated attractor. In practice, resilience is the probability that coral populations will maintain the ability to exhibit a recovery trend after acute disturbances such as hurricanes. The inputs required to estimate resilience are a reef's initial state, physical environment, and disturbance regime. One major driver of reef resilience is herbivory by parrotfish and recent action to protect parrotfish in Belize was found to have increased resilience 6-fold. However, the expected benefits of parrotfish protection to future coral cover were relatively modest with only a 2- to 2.6-fold improvement over a business-as-usual scenario, demonstrating how resilience and ecosystem states are decoupled. Global action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions had little impact on average coral state unless it was accompanied by local controls of fishing. However, combined global and local action reduced the rate of reef degradation threefold. Operationalizing resilience explicitly integrates available biophysical data and accommodates the complex interactions among ecological processes and multiple types of disturbance.

[1]  S. Carpenter,et al.  Catastrophic regime shifts in ecosystems: linking theory to observation , 2003 .

[2]  E. Stehfest,et al.  RCP2.6: exploring the possibility to keep global mean temperature increase below 2°C , 2011 .

[3]  Marten Scheffer,et al.  Slow Recovery from Perturbations as a Generic Indicator of a Nearby Catastrophic Shift , 2007, The American Naturalist.

[4]  S. O’Farrell On the dynamics of coral reef fishes : growth, senescence and mortality , 2011 .

[5]  R. Steneck,et al.  Coral Reefs Under Rapid Climate Change and Ocean Acidification , 2007, Science.

[6]  P. Mumby,et al.  Effects of physical environmental conditions on the patch dynamics of Dictyota pulchella and Lobophora variegata on Caribbean coral reefs , 2010 .

[7]  Martina K. Linnenluecke,et al.  Assessing organizational resilience to climate and weather extremes: complexities and methodological pathways , 2011, Climatic Change.

[8]  M. Nyström,et al.  Capturing the cornerstones of coral reef resilience: linking theory to practice , 2008, Coral Reefs.

[9]  R. Steneck,et al.  Caribbean-wide decline in carbonate production threatens coral reef growth , 2013, Nature Communications.

[10]  Robert van Woesik,et al.  How much time can herbivore protection buy for coral reefs under realistic regimes of hurricanes and coral bleaching? , 2011 .

[11]  T. Hughes Catastrophes, Phase Shifts, and Large-Scale Degradation of a Caribbean Coral Reef , 1994, Science.

[12]  R. Steneck,et al.  Running the Gauntlet: Inhibitory Effects of Algal Turfs on the Processes of Coral Recruitment , 2010 .

[13]  C. S. Holling,et al.  Sustainability, Stability, and Resilience , 1997 .

[14]  Robin Coleman,et al.  Fishing down a Caribbean food web relaxes trophic cascades , 2012 .

[15]  N. Nakicenovic,et al.  RCP 8.5—A scenario of comparatively high greenhouse gas emissions , 2011 .

[16]  W. Adger,et al.  Resilience implications of policy responses to climate change , 2011 .

[17]  Scott F. Heron,et al.  Prioritizing Key Resilience Indicators to Support Coral Reef Management in a Changing Climate , 2012, PloS one.

[18]  Daniel R. Brumbaugh,et al.  Fishing, Trophic Cascades, and the Process of Grazing on Coral Reefs , 2006, Science.

[19]  Scott F. Heron,et al.  Caribbean Corals in Crisis: Record Thermal Stress, Bleaching, and Mortality in 2005 , 2010, PloS one.

[20]  Peter J Mumby,et al.  Ocean acidification and warming will lower coral reef resilience , 2011, Global Change Biology.

[21]  F. Brand,et al.  Focusing the Meaning(s) of Resilience: Resilience as a Descriptive Concept and a Boundary Object , 2007 .

[22]  L. Gunderson Ecological Resilience—In Theory and Application , 2000 .

[23]  S. Purkis,et al.  Satellite imaging coral reef resilience at regional scale. A case-study from Saudi Arabia. , 2012, Marine pollution bulletin.

[24]  Alan Hastings,et al.  Evidence for and against the existence of alternate attractors on coral reefs , 2013 .

[25]  Stephen R. Carpenter,et al.  Management of eutrophication for lakes subject to potentially irreversible change , 1999 .

[26]  C. S. Holling Resilience and Stability of Ecological Systems , 1973 .

[27]  O. Hoegh‐Guldberg,et al.  Global assessment of coral bleaching and required rates of adaptation under climate change , 2005, Global change biology.

[28]  C. Roberts,et al.  Effects of fishing on sex-changing Caribbean parrotfishes , 2004 .

[29]  Peter J. Mumby,et al.  Marine Reserves Enhance the Recovery of Corals on Caribbean Reefs , 2010, PloS one.

[30]  Peter J. Mumby,et al.  Bleaching and hurricane disturbances to populations of coral recruits in Belize , 1999 .

[31]  R. Steneck,et al.  Coral reef management and conservation in light of rapidly evolving ecological paradigms. , 2008, Trends in ecology & evolution.

[32]  A. Hastings,et al.  Thresholds and the resilience of Caribbean coral reefs , 2007, Nature.

[33]  Peter J Mumby,et al.  Reserve design for uncertain responses of coral reefs to climate change. , 2011, Ecology letters.

[34]  P. Mumby,et al.  Size matters in competition between corals and macroalgae , 2012 .

[35]  P. Mumby,et al.  Global disparity in the resilience of coral reefs. , 2012, Trends in ecology & evolution.

[36]  P. Marshall,et al.  Building resilience into practical conservation: identifying local management responses to global climate change in the southern Great Barrier Reef , 2010, Coral Reefs.

[37]  Nicola L Foster,et al.  Connectivity of Caribbean coral populations: complementary insights from empirical and modelled gene flow , 2012, Molecular ecology.

[38]  David Salt,et al.  Resilience Thinking : Sustaining Ecosystems and People in a Changing World , 2017 .

[39]  Humphrey Q. P. Crick,et al.  Resilience to climate change: translating principles into practice , 2012 .

[40]  N. Polunin,et al.  Limits to grazing by herbivorous fishes and the impact of low coral cover on macroalgal abundance on a coral reef in Belize , 2001 .