NDLI: Temporal consistency in background mortality of four dominant coral taxa along Australia’s Great Barrier Reef

Content Provider	Springer Nature Link
Author	Pisapia, C. Anderson, K. D. Pratchett, M. S.
Copyright Year	2016
Abstract	Studies on the population and community dynamics of scleractinian corals typically focus on catastrophic mortality associated with acute disturbances (e.g., coral bleaching and outbreaks of crown-of-thorns starfish), though corals are subject to high levels of background mortality and injuries caused by routine and chronic processes. This study quantified prevalence (proportion of colonies with injuries) and severity (areal extent of injuries on individual colonies) of background mortality and injuries for four common coral taxa (massive Porites, encrusting Montipora, Acropora hyacinthus and branching Pocillopora) on the Great Barrier Reef, Australia. Sampling was conducted over three consecutive years during which there were no major acute disturbances. A total of 2276 adult colonies were surveyed across 27 sites, within nine reefs and three distinct latitudinal sectors. The prevalence of injuries was very high (>83%) across all four taxa, but highest for Porites (91%) and Montipora (85%). For these taxa (Montipora and Pocillopora), there was also significant temporal and spatial variation in prevalence of partial mortality. The severity of injuries ranged from 3% to more than 80% and varied among coral taxa, but was fairly constant spatially and temporally. This shows that some injuries have considerable longevity and that corals may invest relatively little in regenerating tissue over sites of previous injuries. Inter-colony variation in the severity of injury also had no apparent effect on the realized growth of individual colonies, suggesting that energy diverted to regeneration has a limited bearing on overall energetic allocation, or impacts on other life-history processes (e.g., reproduction) rather than growth. Establishing background levels of injury and regeneration is important for understanding energy investment and life-history consequences for reef-building corals as well as for predicting susceptibility to, and capacity to recover from, acute disturbances.
Starting Page	839
Ending Page	849
Page Count	11
File Format	PDF
ISSN	07224028
Journal	Coral Reefs
Volume Number	35
Issue Number	3
e-ISSN	14320975
Language	English
Publisher	Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Publisher Date	2016-04-05
Publisher Place	Berlin, Heidelberg
Access Restriction	One Nation One Subscription (ONOS)
Subject Keyword	Disturbance Resilience Coral reefs Partial mortality Temporal variation Long-term Freshwater & Marine Ecology Oceanography
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Aquatic Science

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