Coral assemblages at higher latitudes favor short-term potential over long-term performance
Abstract
The persistent exposure of coral assemblages to more variable abiotic regimes is assumed to augment their resilience to future climatic variability. Yet, while the determinants of coral population resilience across species remain unknown, we are unable to predict the winners and losers across reef ecosystems exposed to increasingly variable conditions. Using annual surveys of 3171 coral individuals across Australia and Japan (2016-2019), we explore spatial variation across the short- and long-term dynamics of competitive, stress-tolerant, and weedy assemblages to evaluate how abiotic variability mediates the structural composition of coral assemblages. We illustrate how, by promoting short-term potential over long-term performance, coral assemblages can reduce their vulnerability to stochastic environments. However, compared to stress-tolerant, and weedy assemblages, competitive coral taxa display a reduced capacity for elevating their short-term potential. Accordingly, future climatic shifts threaten the structural complexity of coral assemblages in variable environments, emulating the degradation expected across global tropical reefs.
Citation
Cant , J , Reimer , J D , Sommer , B , Cook , K M , Kim , S W , Sims , C A , Mezaki , T , O'Flaherty , C , Brooks , M , Malcolm , H A , Pandolfi , J M , Salguero-Gómez , R & Beger , M 2023 , ' Coral assemblages at higher latitudes favor short-term potential over long-term performance ' , Ecology , vol. 104 , no. 9 , e4138 . https://doi.org/10.1002/ecy.4138
Publication
Ecology
Status
Peer reviewed
DOI
10.1002/ecy.4138ISSN
0012-9658Type
Journal article
Description
Funding: Funding for this research was provided by a Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Doctoral Training Programme Scholarship to JC, a Royal Geographical Society Ralph Brown Expedition Award (RBEA 03/19) to MB and JC, the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (CE140100020) to JMP and others, the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions (CE110001014), a British Ecological Society small grant, the Winifred Violet Scott Charitable Trust, and the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement TRIM-DLV-747102 to MB. BS was supported by an Australian Research Council Discovery Early CareerResearch Award (DE230100141), a University of Sydney Fellowship and a Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Research Fellowship from the University of Technology Sydney.Collections
Items in the St Andrews Research Repository are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.