27 years of benthic and coral community dynamics on turbid, highly urbanised reefs off Singapore

Authors

James R. Guest, University of New South Wales
K. Tun, National Parks Board - Singapore
Jeffrey A. Low, National Parks Board - Singapore
A. Vergés, University of New South Wales
Ezequiel M. Marzinelli, University of New South Wales; Sydney Institute of Marine Science; Nanyang Technological University; The University of Sydney
A. H. Campbell, University of New South Wales
Andrew G. Bauman, National University of SingaporeFollow
David A. Feary, University of Nottingham
Loke Ming Chou, National University of Singapore
Peter D. Steinberg, Nanyang Technological University; Sydney Institute of Marine Science

ORCID

0000-0001-9260-2153

Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Scientific Reports

ISSN

2045-2322

Publication Date

11-8-2016

Abstract

Coral cover on reefs is declining globally due to coastal development, overfishing and climate change. Reefs isolated from direct human influence can recover from natural acute disturbances, but little is known about long term recovery of reefs experiencing chronic human disturbances. Here we investigate responses to acute bleaching disturbances on turbid reefs off Singapore, at two depths over a period of 27 years. Coral cover declined and there were marked changes in coral and benthic community structure during the first decade of monitoring at both depths. At shallower reef crest sites (3–4 m), benthic community structure recovered towards pre-disturbance states within a decade. In contrast, there was a net decline in coral cover and continuing shifts in community structure at deeper reef slope sites (6–7 m). There was no evidence of phase shifts to macroalgal dominance but coral habitats at deeper sites were replaced by unstable substrata such as fine sediments and rubble. The persistence of coral dominance at chronically disturbed shallow sites is likely due to an abundance of coral taxa which are tolerant to environmental stress. In addition, high turbidity may interact antagonistically with other disturbances to reduce the impact of thermal stress and limit macroalgal growth rates.

DOI

10.1038/srep36260

Volume

6

Issue

36260

Comments

Supplementary Information

We are indebted to the numerous volunteers who took part in the benthic surveys between 1986 and 2012, in particular members of the Reef Ecology Survey Team and Blue Water Volunteers. All research carried out abided by local laws and was done with permission of the Singapore National Parks Board (Permit no. NP/RP11-089). This is publication 191 from the Sydney Institute of Marine Science. Funding for this research came in part from the project: “Development of the Advanced Environmental Biotechnology Centre (AEBC)” under the Research Centre Funding Scheme (RCFS), project No. COY-15-EWI-RCFS/N190-2.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

NSUWorks Citation

James R. Guest, K. Tun, Jeffrey A. Low, A. Vergés, Ezequiel M. Marzinelli, A. H. Campbell, Andrew G. Bauman, David A. Feary, Loke Ming Chou, and Peter D. Steinberg. 2016. 27 years of benthic and coral community dynamics on turbid, highly urbanised reefs off Singapore .Scientific Reports , (36260) . https://nsuworks.nova.edu/occ_facarticles/1299.