[Coral-List] Toth et al 2021

Brian Walker walkerb at nova.edu
Wed Jun 23 14:02:53 UTC 2021


Hi All,

Thanks for posting. An interesting paper indeed. Our previous work had shown that reef depths vary along the coast by Ecoregion and that the southern Inner reefs were shallower than the same reefs further north (Walker 2012). This gives geological confirmation that accretion took place longer in the southern reefs. Although interestingly there wasn't much difference on the Outer Reef and the northern reefs were actually shallower.

One disappointment was that the authors missed a key piece of information at hand. The latitudinal limits of the present communities (and likely throughout the Holocene) is the intense cold-water upwelling created by Florida Current meanders as the coast widens in northern Palm Beach county (Walker and Gilliam 2013). It makes sense that the accretion on top of the antecedent features was controlled by climate, however the northern extent is (and likely was) not. This is not likely to change until the Florida Current slows enough to reduce the intense cold-water upwelling. Which, apparently is a real possibility (Caesar et al. 2021). Yikes! 

Caesar, L., McCarthy, G. D., Thornalley, D. J. R., Cahill, N., & Rahmstorf, S. (2021). Current Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation weakest in last millennium. Nature Geoscience, 14(3), 118-120. doi:10.1038/s41561-021-00699-z

Walker, B. K., & Gilliam, D. S. (2013). Determining the Extent and Characterizing Coral Reef Habitats of the Northern Latitudes of the Florida Reef Tract (Martin County). PLoS ONE, 8(11), e80439. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0080439
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0080439

Walker, B. K. (2012). Spatial Analyses of Benthic Habitats to Define Coral Reef Ecosystem Regions and Potential Biogeographic Boundaries along a Latitudinal Gradient. PLoS ONE, 7(1), e30466. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0030466

Best regards,
 
Brian K. Walker | Research Scientist II 
GIS & Spatial Ecology Laboratory
Halmos College of Arts and Sciences 
Nova Southeastern University
8000 N. Ocean Drive, Dania Beach, FL 33004
(954) 262-3675

Links:

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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://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdoi.org%2F10.1038%2Fs41598-021-87883-8&data=04%7C01%7Cwalkerb%40nova.edu%7C179701e9ee994ca4c22908d935bddc85%7C2c2b2d312e3e4df1b571fb37c042ff1b%7C1%7C0%7C637599911830456562%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=T7vayzEbDuHanTSoBeJdyoMoe8leuBHI0APi%2B%2FAjsF0%3D&reserved=0

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://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fvimeo.com%2F177782350&data=04%7C01%7Cwalkerb%40nova.edu%7C179701e9ee994ca4c22908d935bddc85%7C2c2b2d312e3e4df1b571fb37c042ff1b%7C1%7C0%7C637599911830456562%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=zwkp9CN6eaAxSBqgtHsfiUpfN4Nhwb4xlQjrhmkVF3Y%3D&reserved=0
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
https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.johnfbruno.com%2F&data=04%7C01%7Cwalkerb%40nova.edu%7C179701e9ee994ca4c22908d935bddc85%7C2c2b2d312e3e4df1b571fb37c042ff1b%7C1%7C0%7C637599911830456562%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=SzTb1XuCL0VBWK86kA%2F2BWv5VrNZmcB%2FdrpweM%2BNdDc%3D&reserved=0
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