Diel Temperature and pH Variability Scale With Depth Across Diverse Coral Reef Habitats

Authors

Tyler Cyronak, University of California - San Diego; Nova Southeastern UniversityFollow
Yuichiro Takeshita, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute
Travis A. Courtney, University of California - San Diego
Eric H. DeCarlo, University of Hawaii at Manoa
Bradley D. Eyre, Southern Cross University - Lismore, Australia
David I. Kline, University of California - San Diego; Smithsonian Institution
Todd R. Martz, University of California - San Diego
Heather Page, University of California - San Diego
Nichole Price, Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences
Jennifer Smith, University of California - San Diego
Laura Stoltenberg, Southern Cross University - Lismore, Australia
Martin Tresguerres, University of California - San Diego
Andreas J. Andersson, University of California - San Diego

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

12-20-2019

Publication Title

Limnology and Oceanography Letters

ISSN

2378-2242

First Page

1

Last Page

11

Abstract

Coral reefs are facing intensifying stressors, largely due to global increases in seawater temperature and decreases in pH. However, there is extensive environmental variability within coral reef ecosystems, which can impact how organisms respond to global trends. We deployed spatial arrays of autonomous sensors across distinct shallow coral reef habitats to determine patterns of spatiotemporal variability in seawater physicochemical parameters. Temperature and pH were positively correlated over the course of a day due to solar heating and light‐driven metabolism. The mean temporal and spatial ranges of temperature and pH were positively correlated across all sites, with different regimes of variability observed in different reef types. Ultimately, depth was a reliable predictor of the average diel ranges in both seawater temperature and pH. These results demonstrate that there is widespread environmental variability on diel timescales within coral reefs related to water column depth, which needs to be included in assessments of how global change will locally affect reef ecosystems.

Comments

©2019 The Authors. Limnology and Oceanography published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography.

Additional Comments

Australian Research Council grant #: DP150102092; NSF grant #s: 1650112, 1255042, 1538495

NSUWorks Citation

Tyler Cyronak, Yuichiro Takeshita, Travis A. Courtney, Eric H. DeCarlo, Bradley D. Eyre, David I. Kline, Todd R. Martz, Heather Page, Nichole Price, Jennifer Smith, Laura Stoltenberg, Martin Tresguerres, and Andreas J. Andersson. 2019. Diel Temperature and pH Variability Scale With Depth Across Diverse Coral Reef Habitats .Limnology and Oceanography Letters : 1 -11. https://nsuworks.nova.edu/occ_facarticles/1075.

ORCID ID

0000-0003-3556-7616

DOI

10.1002/lol2.10129