Coral reefs in the Gilbert Islands of Kiribati: Resistance, resilience, and recovery after more than a decade of multiple stressors.

Coral reefs are increasingly affected by a combination of acute and chronic disturbances from climate change and local stressors. The coral reefs of the Republic of Kiribati's Gilbert Islands are exposed to frequent heat stress caused by central-Pacific type El Niño events, and may provide a gl...

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Autores principales:	Sara E Cannon, Erietera Aram, Toaea Beiateuea, Aranteiti Kiareti, Max Peter, Simon D Donner
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2021
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/ea5aa42ab2654a9d97f0276fe8b6a19c
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:ea5aa42ab2654a9d97f0276fe8b6a19c2021-12-02T20:18:24ZCoral reefs in the Gilbert Islands of Kiribati: Resistance, resilience, and recovery after more than a decade of multiple stressors.1932-620310.1371/journal.pone.0255304https://doaj.org/article/ea5aa42ab2654a9d97f0276fe8b6a19c2021-01-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0255304https://doaj.org/toc/1932-6203Coral reefs are increasingly affected by a combination of acute and chronic disturbances from climate change and local stressors. The coral reefs of the Republic of Kiribati's Gilbert Islands are exposed to frequent heat stress caused by central-Pacific type El Niño events, and may provide a glimpse into the future of coral reefs in other parts of the world, where the frequency of heat stress events will likely increase due to climate change. Reefs in the Gilbert Islands experienced a series of acute disturbances over the past fifteen years, including mass coral bleaching in 2004-2005 and 2009-2010, and an outbreak of the corallivorous sea star Acanthaster cf solaris, or Crown-of-Thorns (CoTs), in 2014. The local chronic pressures including nutrient loading, sedimentation and fishing vary within the island chain, with highest pressures on the reefs in urbanized South Tarawa Atoll. In this study, we examine how recovery from acute disturbances differs across a gradient of human influence in neighboring Tarawa and Abaiang Atolls from 2012 through 2018. Benthic cover and size frequency data suggests that local coral communities have adjusted to the heat stress via shifts in the community composition to more temperature-tolerant taxa and individuals. In densely populated South Tarawa, we document a phase shift to the weedy and less bleaching-sensitive coral Porites rus, which accounted for 81% of all coral cover by 2018. By contrast, in less populated Abaiang, coral communities remained comparatively more diverse (with higher percentages of Pocillopora and the octocoral Heliopora) after the disturbances, but reefs had lower overall hard coral cover (18%) and were dominated by turf algae (41%). The CoTs outbreak caused a decline in the cover and mean size of massive Porites, the only taxa that was a 'winner' of the coral bleaching events in Abaiang. Although there are signs of recovery, the long-term trajectory of the benthic communities in Abaiang is not yet clear. We suggest three scenarios: they may remain in their current state (dominated by turf algae), undergo a phase shift to dominance by the macroalgae Halimeda, or recover to dominance by thermally tolerant hard coral genera. These findings provide a rare glimpse at the future of coral reefs around the world and the ways they may be affected by climate change, which may allow scientists to better predict how other reefs will respond to increasing heat stress events across gradients of local human disturbance.Sara E CannonErietera AramToaea BeiateueaAranteiti KiaretiMax PeterSimon D DonnerPublic Library of Science (PLoS)articleMedicineRScienceQENPLoS ONE, Vol 16, Iss 8, p e0255304 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q Sara E Cannon Erietera Aram Toaea Beiateuea Aranteiti Kiareti Max Peter Simon D Donner Coral reefs in the Gilbert Islands of Kiribati: Resistance, resilience, and recovery after more than a decade of multiple stressors.
description	Coral reefs are increasingly affected by a combination of acute and chronic disturbances from climate change and local stressors. The coral reefs of the Republic of Kiribati's Gilbert Islands are exposed to frequent heat stress caused by central-Pacific type El Niño events, and may provide a glimpse into the future of coral reefs in other parts of the world, where the frequency of heat stress events will likely increase due to climate change. Reefs in the Gilbert Islands experienced a series of acute disturbances over the past fifteen years, including mass coral bleaching in 2004-2005 and 2009-2010, and an outbreak of the corallivorous sea star Acanthaster cf solaris, or Crown-of-Thorns (CoTs), in 2014. The local chronic pressures including nutrient loading, sedimentation and fishing vary within the island chain, with highest pressures on the reefs in urbanized South Tarawa Atoll. In this study, we examine how recovery from acute disturbances differs across a gradient of human influence in neighboring Tarawa and Abaiang Atolls from 2012 through 2018. Benthic cover and size frequency data suggests that local coral communities have adjusted to the heat stress via shifts in the community composition to more temperature-tolerant taxa and individuals. In densely populated South Tarawa, we document a phase shift to the weedy and less bleaching-sensitive coral Porites rus, which accounted for 81% of all coral cover by 2018. By contrast, in less populated Abaiang, coral communities remained comparatively more diverse (with higher percentages of Pocillopora and the octocoral Heliopora) after the disturbances, but reefs had lower overall hard coral cover (18%) and were dominated by turf algae (41%). The CoTs outbreak caused a decline in the cover and mean size of massive Porites, the only taxa that was a 'winner' of the coral bleaching events in Abaiang. Although there are signs of recovery, the long-term trajectory of the benthic communities in Abaiang is not yet clear. We suggest three scenarios: they may remain in their current state (dominated by turf algae), undergo a phase shift to dominance by the macroalgae Halimeda, or recover to dominance by thermally tolerant hard coral genera. These findings provide a rare glimpse at the future of coral reefs around the world and the ways they may be affected by climate change, which may allow scientists to better predict how other reefs will respond to increasing heat stress events across gradients of local human disturbance.
format	article
author	Sara E Cannon Erietera Aram Toaea Beiateuea Aranteiti Kiareti Max Peter Simon D Donner
author_facet	Sara E Cannon Erietera Aram Toaea Beiateuea Aranteiti Kiareti Max Peter Simon D Donner
author_sort	Sara E Cannon
title	Coral reefs in the Gilbert Islands of Kiribati: Resistance, resilience, and recovery after more than a decade of multiple stressors.
title_short	Coral reefs in the Gilbert Islands of Kiribati: Resistance, resilience, and recovery after more than a decade of multiple stressors.
title_full	Coral reefs in the Gilbert Islands of Kiribati: Resistance, resilience, and recovery after more than a decade of multiple stressors.
title_fullStr	Coral reefs in the Gilbert Islands of Kiribati: Resistance, resilience, and recovery after more than a decade of multiple stressors.
title_full_unstemmed	Coral reefs in the Gilbert Islands of Kiribati: Resistance, resilience, and recovery after more than a decade of multiple stressors.
title_sort	coral reefs in the gilbert islands of kiribati: resistance, resilience, and recovery after more than a decade of multiple stressors.
publisher	Public Library of Science (PLoS)
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/ea5aa42ab2654a9d97f0276fe8b6a19c
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Coral reefs in the Gilbert Islands of Kiribati: Resistance, resilience, and recovery after more than a decade of multiple stressors.

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