[Coral-List] Toth et al 2021

Bruno, John jbruno at unc.edu
Tue Jun 22 18:58:23 UTC 2021


Coral peeps: check out the interesting new paper by Toth et al "Climate and the latitudinal limits of subtropical reef development" -> its open access here:  https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-87883-8

What an author group! Some of the Caribbean's leading reef scientists teamed up to assess past accretional states and the demise of the high-latitude reefs of southeast Florida I grew up diving on in the 80s (off Jupiter and West Palm Beach). They conclude that climate variability (namely post-holocene thermal maximum cooling and cold fronts) and not sea level rise was the cause of the demise of these reefs after a period of accretion ~ 10,000 years ago. (I had thought they were much older), 

Importantly, they conclude: "Modern warming is unlikely to simply reverse this trend, however, because the climate of the Anthropocene will be fundamentally different from the HTM. By increasing the frequency and intensity of both warm and cold extreme-weather events, contemporary climate change will instead amplify conditions inimical to reef development in marginal reef environments such as southern Florida, making them more likely to continue to deteriorate than to resume accretion in the future."

PS, You can see what these relic reefs look like now here: https://vimeo.com/177782350
Little coral, but extraordinary fish and invert communities. If you think a reef with <10% living cover is "dead" you should watch this or go see for yourself. 

Cheers, 

JB

John Bruno
Professor, Dept of Biology
UNC Chapel Hill
www.johnfbruno.com


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