Why more comparative approaches are required in time-series analyses of coral reef ecosystems
Why more comparative approaches are required in time-series analyses of coral reef ecosystems
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DOI：
10.3354/meps12805
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发表时间：
2019-01-03
影响因子：
2.5
通讯作者：
Fong, P.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Edmunds, P. J.;Adam, T. C.;Fong, P.
在人类世，环境变化对珊瑚礁的负面影响超过了它们继续生长的能力。然而，一些珊瑚礁对最近的干扰表现出了恢复力，在这里，我们建议更全面地关注比较方法，可以更深入地了解导致珊瑚覆盖减少和生态恢复力受损的过程。以莫奥利亚、法属波利尼西亚和东热带太平洋巴拿马为例，研究了35年以上的弹性珊瑚礁，我们通过探索每个地点不同的生态驱动因素，展示了比较方法的潜力。在这两种情况下，珊瑚礁群落的恢复力都与强食草性有关，但在moorea，恢复力是珊瑚群落通过性招募快速恢复的产物，以应对一种基本上不分青红皂白的干扰（棘冠海星），而在巴拿马，恢复力似乎是珊瑚获得对重复选择性干扰（白化）的抵抗力的产物。基于这些趋势，我们提出了一个假设驱动的概念框架来测试驱动社区恢复力的机制。近十年来，珊瑚礁的退化将时间序列分析带到了这些系统研究的前沿，在那里他们正在检测现代生态科学所特有的干扰。如果系统之间没有明确的比较，这些项目的研究潜力将无法充分发挥。
In the Anthropocene, the negative effects of environmental change on coral reefs are outpacing their capacity for continued growth. However, a few reefs have shown resilience to recent disturbances, and here we suggest that more comprehensive attention to comparative approaches could lead to a deeper understanding of the processes causing declining coral cover and impaired ecological resilience. Using sites in Mo'orea, French Polynesia, and Panama, Eastern Tropical Pacific, as examples of resilient reefs that have been studied for over 35 yr, we demonstrate the potential of the comparative approach by exploring different ecological drivers of community resilience at each location. In both cases, coral reef community resilience is associated with strong herbivory, but in Mo'orea, resilience is a product of rapid coral community recovery through sexual recruitment in response to a largely indiscriminate disturbance (crown-of-thorns seastars), while in Panama, resilience appears to be a product of corals acquiring resistance to a repetitive selective disturbance (bleaching). Based on these trends, we propose a hypothesis-driven conceptual framework to test for mechanisms driving community resilience. The recent decade of coral reef degradation has brought time-series analyses to the forefront of research on these systems, where they are detecting disturbances that are unique to modern ecological science. Without explicit comparison among systems, the research potential of these projects will not be fully realized.