Taphonomy: Detecting Critical Events in Fossil Reef-Coral Assemblages
Taphonomy: Detecting Critical Events in Fossil Reef-Coral Assemblages
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埋藏学：检测化石礁-珊瑚组合中的关键事件
DOI：
10.1007/978-0-387-33537-7_2
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发表时间：
2007
期刊：
影响因子：
4.3
通讯作者：
B. Greenstein
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
B. Greenstein
影响世界珊瑚礁系统的迅速而剧烈的变化使海洋科学界时而感到震惊，时而感到沮丧。在加勒比海和热带西大西洋省尤其如此，在许多地区，活珊瑚已被肉质藻类所取代（见Carpenter 1985； de Ruyter van Stevenick and Bak 1986; Liddell and Ohlhorst 1986; Hughes, Reed, and Boyle 1987; Wilkinson 1993）。虽然观测到的变化的速度是一个突出的警报来源（Curran et al. 1994; Precht and Aronson 1995; Wilkinson 2000），但缺乏长期生态数据集，使任何将这些变化置于时间视角的尝试都变得混乱。研究人员普遍承认，在10年、20年甚至30年的时间里出现的模式（Hughes 1994）可能只是代表了在地质时间尺度上运作的较长期周期的一部分（Bak和Nieuwland 1995），或者至少代表了造礁珊瑚的产生时间和寿命，其中许多很容易超过一个典型的科学研究生涯的长度。这一事实使得工作人员难以确定观察到的转变是长期生态循环的自然组成部分，还是主要由人为干扰引起的前所未有的现象（Grigg和Dollar 1990； Brown 1997）。另一个令人沮丧的原因是被称为“转移基线综合症”的现象（Pauly 1995; Sheppard 1995）。Jackson（1997）雄辩地指出，加勒比海沿岸的生态系统在很久以前就因人类活动而严重退化
The rapid and dramatic changes affecting the world’s coral reef systems have alternately alarmed and frustrated the marine scientific community. This is particularly true in the Caribbean and tropical western Atlantic province, where live corals have been replaced by fleshy algae in many areas (see Carpenter 1985; de Ruyter van Stevenick and Bak 1986; Liddell and Ohlhorst 1986; Hughes, Reed, and Boyle 1987; Wilkinson 1993). While the rapidity of the observed changes is a prominent source of alarm (Curran et al. 1994; Precht and Aronson 1995; Wilkinson 2000), the lack of long-term ecological data sets confounds any attempt to place these changes into a temporal perspective. Researchers generally acknowledge that patterns demonstrated to have occurred over 10, 20, and even 30 years (Hughes 1994) may simply represent part of longer-term cycles that operate over geologic time scales (Bak and Nieuwland 1995), or at least over the generation time and longevity of reef-building corals, many of which easily exceed the length of a typical scientific research career. This fact has made it difficult for workers to determine whether the observed transitions are natural components of long-term ecological cycles or an unprecedented phenomenon resulting from primarily anthropogenic disturbances (Grigg and Dollar 1990; Brown 1997). An additional source of frustration is the phenomenon known as “shifting baseline syndrome”(Pauly 1995; Sheppard 1995). Jackson (1997) argued eloquently that coastal Caribbean ecosystems were severely degraded by humans long before