Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles
Social-environmental drivers inform strategic management of coral reefs in the Anthropocene
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
8-12-2019
Publication Title
Nature Ecology & Evolution
ISSN
2397-334X
Volume
3
First Page
1341
Last Page
1350
Abstract
Without drastic efforts to reduce carbon emissions and mitigate globalized stressors, tropical coral reefs are in jeopardy. Strategic conservation and management requires identification of the environmental and socioeconomic factors driving the persistence of scleractinian coral assemblages—the foundation species of coral reef ecosystems. Here, we compiled coral abundance data from 2,584 Indo-Pacific reefs to evaluate the influence of 21 climate, social and environmental drivers on the ecology of reef coral assemblages. Higher abundances of framework-building corals were typically associated with: weaker thermal disturbances and longer intervals for potential recovery; slower human population growth; reduced access by human settlements and markets; and less nearby agriculture. We therefore propose a framework of three management strategies (protect, recover or transform) by considering: (1) if reefs were above or below a proposed threshold of >10% cover of the coral taxa important for structural complexity and carbonate production; and (2) reef exposure to severe thermal stress during the 2014–2017 global coral bleaching event. Our findings can guide urgent management efforts for coral reefs, by identifying key threats across multiple scales and strategic policy priorities that might sustain a network of functioning reefs in the Indo-Pacific to avoid ecosystem collapse.
Additional Comments
Major funding for this work was provided via a David H. Smith Conservation Research Fellowship from the Cedar Tree Foundation, a Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation through grants to the Wildlife Conservation Society.
NSUWorks Citation
Emily S. Darling, Tim R. McClanahan, Joseph Maina, Georgina G. Gurney, Nicholas A. J. Graham, Fraser A. Januchowski-Hartley, Josh Eli Cinner, Camilo Mora, Christina Chemtai Hicks, Eva Maire, Marji Puotinen, William J. Skirving, Mehdi Adjeroud, Gabby Ahmadia, Rohan Arthur, Andrew G. Bauman, Maria Beger, Michael L. Berumen, Lionel Bigot, Jessica Bouwmeester, Ambroise Brenier, Tom C. L. Bridge, Eric Brown, Stuart J. Campbell, Sara Cannon, Bruce Cauvin, Chaolun Allen Chen, Joachim Claudet, Vianney Denis, Simon Donner, Estradivari, Nur Fadli, David A. Feary, Douglas Fenner, Helen Fox, Erik C. Franklin, Alan M. Friedlander, James Gilmour, Claire Goiran, James R. Guest, Jean-Paul A. Hobbs, Andrew S. Hoey, Peter Houk, Steven Johnson, Stacy Jupiter, Mohsen Kayal, Chao-Yang Kuo, Joleah Lamb, Michelle A. C. Lee, Jeffrey Low, Nyawira Muthiga, Efin Muttaqin, Yashika Nand, Kirsty L. Nash, Osamu Nedlic, John M. Pandolfi, Shinta Pardede, Vardhan Patankar, Lucie Penin, Lauriane Ribas-Deulofeu, Zoe T. Richards, T. Edward Roberts, Ku'ulei S. Rogers, Che Din Mohd Safuan, Enric Sala, George Shedrawi, Tsai Min Sin, Patrick Smallhorn-West, Jennifer E. Smith, Brigitte Sommer, Peter D. Steinberg, Makamas Sutthacheep, Chun Hong James Tan, Gareth J. Williams, Shaun Wilson, Thamasak Yeemin, John F. Bruno, Marie-Josee Fortin, Martin Krkosek, and David Mouillot. 2019. Social-environmental drivers inform strategic management of coral reefs in the Anthropocene .Nature Ecology & Evolution : 1341 -1350. https://nsuworks.nova.edu/occ_facarticles/1284.
ORCID ID
0000-0001-9260-2153
DOI
10.1038/s41559-019-0953-8
Comments
Data availability
Data are available on request or directly from the data contributors. Contact details and information on the geographies covered by each data contributor are provided in Supplementary Table 8.
Code availability
All R code is available from https://github.com/esdarling/IndoPacific-corals.
Supplementary information
Supplementary InformationSupplementary acknowledgements, methods, Figs. 1–7 and Tables 1–8.
Reporting Summary