Disturbance and the Reorganization of Caribbean Reef Communities: Unique Event or Repeated Pattern?

鹿角珊瑚在更新世和全新世期间是加勒比海珊瑚礁的主要空间占有者和重要的构造者。在过去的20年里，该地区各地的Acropora种群都因白带病的爆发而死亡，白带病是一种可能的细菌感染。在伯利兹的泻湖珊瑚礁上，Acropora的灭绝导致生菜珊瑚Agaricia tenuifolia占据主导地位。这种从Acropora到Agaricia的转变在伯利兹的地下沉积物中产生了一个明显的特征，对从这些珊瑚礁中提取的岩心的分析表明，这一系列事件至少在过去3000年中是独一无二的。如今，在距离伯利兹珊瑚礁1000多公里的巴拿马西北部奇里基湖，类似的以阿加里西亚人为主的社区很常见。这些珊瑚礁以前也是由Acropora主导的吗？一项密集的取芯计划将揭示巴拿马珊瑚礁是否与伯利兹的珊瑚礁有类似的近代史。更重要的是，这些核心将被用来确定Acropora的大规模死亡是否是最近伯利兹所特有的，或者过去是否发生过类似的事件。如果Acropora因疾病而丧失是一种新现象，那可能与加勒比地区人类活动的加速有关。

9902192AronsonThe staghorn coral Acropora cervicornis was a dominant space-occupier and an important framework constructor of Caribbean coral reefs during the Pleistocene and Holocene. Populations of Acropora have been killed throughout the region over the past two decades by outbreaks of white-band disease, a presumed bacterial infection. On lagoonal reefs in Belize, the demise of Acropora led to dominance by the lettuce coral Agaricia tenuifolia. This Acropora-to-Agaricia transition produced a clear signature in the subsurface sediments in Belize, and analysis of cores extracted from these reefs showed this sequence of events to be unique in at least the last 3,000 years. Similar Agaricia-dominated communities are common today in the Laguna de Chiriqui in northwestern Panama, more than 1,000 km from the Belizean reefs. Were these reefs also previously dominated by Acropora? An intensive program of coring will reveal whether the Panamanian reefs have a similar Recent history to those in Belize. More important, the cores will be used to determine if the mass mortality of Acropora was unique to the Recent, as in Belize, or whether similar events occurred in the past. If the loss of Acropora to disease is a new phenomenon, it could be related to accelerating human activity in the Caribbean.