Biogeographic and community response of reef corals to Pleistocene interglacial warming

目前的气候变暖和相关的压力因素被认为对热带珊瑚礁生态系统特别危险。我们提出了一个项目，从生物地理变化和群落变化的角度研究珊瑚对更新世间冰期变暖的响应，重点是末次间冰期(LIG)。现代珊瑚分布可作为基准，对照LIG分布进行测试，同时考虑到割裂偏差和采样问题。我们的研究结合了对选定的赤道珊瑚礁阶地(印度尼西亚、菲律宾、肯尼亚)的实地研究与全球珊瑚产生量数据的分析。有待检验的假设是：(1)礁珊瑚的纬度多样性梯度(LDG)是动态的，并受气候引起的范围移动的控制；(2)在LIG期间，礁珊瑚的现代单峰LDG转变为双峰模式；(3)随着气候变暖，礁珊瑚的纬向变化是可变的，并与生态特征有关；(4)气候变暖导致群落结构的变化。

Current climate warming and associated stressors are thought to be especially hazardous for tropical coral reef ecosystems. We propose a project to study the response of reef corals to Pleistocene interglacial warming in terms of biogeographic shifts and community changes focusing on the Last Interglacial (LIG). Modern coral distributions serve as a benchmark against which the LIG distributions are tested taking taphonomic biases and sampling issues into account. Our study combines field-based research on selected equatorial reef terraces (Indonesia, Philippines, Kenya) with analyses of global coral occurrence data. The hypotheses to be tested are that (1) the latitudinal diversity gradient (LDG) of reef corals is dynamic and governed by climatically induced range shifts; (2) the modern unimodal LDG of reef corals changed to a bimodal pattern during the LIG; (3) latitudinal shifts of reef corals with warming were variable and linked to ecological traits and, (4) climate warming led to changes in community structure.