[Coral-List] what does this new analysis tell us???
Austin Bowden-Kerby
abowdenkerby at gmail.com
Wed Feb 9 02:43:56 UTC 2022
Doug and also Gene, Alina, Phillip, and Steve (in a related thread),
Interesting discussions and also very interesting and weighty publications
you have shared.
As far as the big picture, I think that most, or all of us agree- coral
reefs and hundreds of coral species are threatened with extinction due to
climate change. However, the difference is in perceived urgency- if coral
reefs do have more time, then we have more time to act. But what if the
more dire reports and predictions are the correct ones? And certainly time
has already run out for some areas.
This discussion and these conflicting published reports sound a bit like
scientists on the deck of the Titanic- and with the iceberg in full view,
they are focusing on differing calculations regarding the estimated time of
impact of the ship, but the the impact is inevitable- and no discussions
will stop it, even though it may make people feel that something is being
done- while in fact nothing is! These discussions all amount to how much
time we have before impact. Isn't it best to assume the worst-case scenario
as the most precautionary approach, for those on deck to skip lunch and
their customary afternoon nap, and to get busy building life rafts - even
if out of the deck chairs and floor boards? For the coral reefs, does 30,
100, or even 300 years make any difference at all to the ultimate fate of
the corals, when extinction is forever, and when 2.4C may well be our new
scenario? Some reefs have already hit the climate berg- they have
collapsed and are not recovering and they appear to be mostly forgotten,
not being part of the Reef Check database (Glibert Islands, Phoenix
Islands, Line Islands, Chagos, etc). This is the front line of what is
expected by all published reports to become a widespread planetary
collapse- and so these frontline reefs contain vital information that we
need in order to defeat the enemy.
As long as connectivity exists and some healthy coral populations continue
to reproduce, coral recovery can and will happen, and that will keep
the coral reefs alive. Wonderful for now, but what will happen in future
scenarios, when major heat waves become an annual occurrence or even
semi-permanent, like what has happened in Kiribati, or when upcurrent
larval sources are non-existent, like in Guam and the Marianas and much of
Kiribati as well? Certainly some recovery may happen, but will it be at
the expense of Acropora and favoring Pocillopora and Porites? A cascading
phase shift in coral species dominance seems to be in progress, but this
phase shift is not recorded in the GCRMN reports because they do not
distinguish between genera. This phase shift is instead reported as an
increase in coral cover = a good thing, rather than such "recovery" being a
descent into an alternative steady state system, where less diverse and
poor habitat forming coral species occupy settlement surfaces that will
keep the former species out, should their reproduction be restored.
>From the perspective of questioning the future of individual coral species
and their extinction risk, I believe that the Caribbean shows us a window
into the future of the IndoPacific. For Acropora cervicornis at least, even
though the major decline in abundance was disease-related, it showed us
that when a formerly abundant coral species becomes highly fragmented, and
when surviving patches were mostly of a single genet, that the species can
become reproductively extinct, with coral larvae no longer being produced
in enough abundance to counteract predation rates, so the species slides
into oblivion, unless assisted by active restoration.
Am I just another person sitting on the deck watching the approaching
iceberg discussing what to do? Never mind estimating more precisely how
much time we might have- I can hear the engine revving up, as the people
who control the engine are speeding the ship up, not slowing it down! Over
half the man-made carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been produced since
1992!, and it is being belched out even faster with each passing year! Not
a single treaty has slowed its production, we have been duped- we celebrate
a slowing in the RATE of acceleration, but the acceleration still
increases. And with this acceleration, how can anything based on past data
of recovery and resilience at much lower stress levels be our primary guide
to what is coming? We have entered entirely new waters! So, like with
cyclone preparations, we must assume the worst case scenario, and act from
that perspective, because this is indeed a deadly super cyclone heading
right for our precious home and our loved ones!
Back to the Titanic.... can we focus on agreeing that the ship is going to
hit full on, and that we must get very busy right NOW? Some of us have
started assembling lifeboats out of whatever we can scrounge, and we hope
that others will join us, or at least help by passing over some of the
extensive resources that they are holding? The lifeboats are strategies
designed to save the corals as the ship hits the climate berg. This is not
the time to retire to our cabins to take a nap, no matter how sweet that
would be, the planet needs us- can we please get all hands on deck?
The problem is that there are, for the most part, no strategic plans, no
generals and no boot camps, so an all hands on deck plea might at this
point result in mostly confusion. For starters, maybe each of us can rally
around whatever efforts are near or dear to us personally- anything is
better than nothing, support what we find seems most hopeful: financially,
scientifically/academically, administratively, as a volunteer, etc. And
then, with vastly more support, any effort that is not very effective will
quickly become apparent, and the more effective strategies will begin to
shine, develop, and evolve.
Here are some suggested objectives and strategies that Corals for
Conservation is using to launch our own battles on climate driven coral
reef collapse, that others might also become involved with.
1. Work to keep coral species from going locally extinct in the wild, and
in a genetically diverse state over at least the next 50+ years.
2. Work to better understand the process of bleaching-driven coral reef
collapse on the front line non recovering reefs, with the aim of reversing
the situation and restoring these lost reefs.
3. Work to increase the bleaching resistance and disease resistance of
corals through translocation of corals locally from nearshore stressed
reefs where temperatures are expected to get too hot for their long term
survival, to cooler outer reefs, where temperatures are expected to remain
under the higher bleaching threshold of the translocated corals for the
next several decades at least.
4. Focus restoration and translocation efforts on the creation of sexually
reproductive coral populations that are viable and diverse in key
up-current areas, producing coral larvae to help stimulate the recovery of
the wider reef system.
5. Include the above efforts and more within no-take and cleaner reef areas
where possible, and use the strategies to enhance existing MPA management
based strategies.
6. Etc...
Multiple strategies might be developed for each objective, and teams of
scientists and volunteers should work together between regions and nations,
conducting experimental trials designed to ask and answer key questions,
and thereby coming up with new solutions and new strategies. Most of the
proposed strategies are based on seat of the pants logic and therefore lack
much scientific data, so they could make important points for research by
graduates students.
Limited funding, national boundaries, and intellectual protectionism must
not continue to be primary limiting factors. And of course, we must also
work to deprive the enemy of its weapons: carbon and methane.
Any strategy along the lines of the above could in time transform into a
war- with generals and sergeants, troops, battle plans, weapons, and
ammunition that are effective at beating the enemy and preventing the
collapse of coral reefs due to climate change. We can win this war, but
only if we come together to wage that war! If you have read this far, it
might be time for a nap- LOL!
All hands on deck!
Kind regards,
Austin
Austin Bowden-Kerby, PhD
Corals for Conservation
P.O. Box 4649 Samabula, Fiji Islands
https://www.corals4conservation.org
TEDx talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PRLJ8zDm0U
https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/emergency-response-to-massive-coral-bleaching/
<https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/emergency-response-to-massive-coral-bleaching/>
On Wed, Feb 9, 2022 at 9:14 AM Douglas Fenner via Coral-List <
coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:
> Forgot the reference: Roff, G. and Mumby, P. J. 2012. Global disparity in
> the resilience of coral reefs. Trends in
>
> Ecology and Evolution 27: 404-419.
>
>
> And a reminder of the AIMS monitoring report:
> https://www.aims.gov.au/reef-monitoring/gbr-condition-summary-2020-2021
> (scroll down to the line graphs of coral cover over time for the north,
> central, and southern GBR)
>
> On Tue, Feb 8, 2022 at 8:53 AM Douglas Fenner <
> douglasfennertassi at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Yes, but both of these studies are based on the quantitative
> > results of 10's of thousands of reef monitoring or surveying sites. The
> > people who did those studies did NOT make that data up. That's one thing
> > for sure. The data was real. And we can choose to ignore it if it
> doesn't
> > fit with our life experiences, or we can try to deal with it. I think we
> > need to try to deal with it.
> > One of the things I've thought of sometimes when Gene is telling us
> > about Florida reefs, is that although I have absolutely NO doubt he's
> > telling us the truth, and it is good to be reminded, Florida is not the
> > world, and the reefs there, if anything, in their construction, are
> unusual
> > for coral reefs around the world. They're not like an atoll (the world
> has
> > about 400 atolls), the living parts are usually called the "Florida Reef
> > Tract" presumably in part because they don't look like a lot of other
> > reefs. As far as I know, the areas that have living coral are tiny patch
> > reefs.
> > The Caribbean has been the site of probably more research per sq
> km
> > of reef than most anywhere else in the world. The western Atlantic has a
> > set of species that is virtually unique in the world, very few fish
> species
> > and no known native reef coral species are in common with the
> > Indo-Pacific. And now it turns out, it may not be representative of the
> > rest of the reefs of the world.
> > Notice that all your memories but one that you quote are from the
> western
> > Atlantic, the Caribbean and Florida. Remember Mike Risk pointing to the
> > paper from Indonesia which reported on a lava flow, which incinerated
> > anything alive it hit and produced a whole new surface. If I remember,
> > within 6 years, it had a thriving coral reef ecosystem with lots of coral
> > cover. I've read people writing that the Coral Triangle is going down
> hill
> > steeply. That doesn't fit with my experience in the Philippines at about
> > 200 dive sites. Granted, I've always thought that people there showed me
> > the best sites, I do not claim they were randomly chosen or
> > representative. And I haven't been back for about 15 years or so. But
> > those sites showed no signs of the degradation that is apparent virtually
> > everywhere in the Caribbean (Cozumel, Mexico, one of my old haunts, has
> > probably degraded less than most in the Caribbean, Tom Goreau tells me it
> > has lost some coral cover which has largely been replaced with sponge).
> In
> > the Philippines, one place I saw early on, there was nothing but dead
> coral
> > rubble. I asked the resort dive people and they said a typhoon destroyed
> > it. I came back 11 years later, and couldn't find it, until I realized
> > that the mass of near 100% glorious, diverse, coral cover in front of my
> > nose was it. It had completely recovered. The AIMS monitoring results
> > show the same effect, on a vastly greater scale, and quantitatively.
> > Please look at those graphs, and see the radical loss of coral cover that
> > had all of us scared to death. And notice that the coral cover
> completely
> > recovered. That is completely unlike any location in the Caribbean.
> > Discovery Bay, Jamaica, over 40 years after it lost its coral cover,
> still
> > hasn't recovered.
> > A review by Roff and Mumby put their finger on it. The western
> > Atlantic has far less resilience than the Indo-Pacific. Reference below.
> > They try to figure out why, and the why may still be an open question.
> But
> > the evidence is that the Caribbean and Florida have not recovered, yet in
> > the Indo-Pacific, often reefs do recover. And there have always been
> > plenty of natural disturbances, the clearest example being cyclones,
> > typhoons and hurricanes (basically the same thing except which way they
> > rotate differs north and south of the equator). These cyclonic storms
> have
> > been happening for time immemorial, surely much longer than coral reefs
> > have existed, probably at least a couple billion years. They can
> > completely flatten coral reefs, and they do that some reefs somewhere
> every
> > year. Yet coral reefs are still here. How can that be?? Coral reefs
> can
> > recover from them. Coral reefs are dynamic instead of static, they are
> > continually in recovery from one thing or another. But most natural
> > disturbances are brief and allow time for recovery, human disturbance,
> like
> > sedimentation, nutrients, overfishing, are continuous, no time for
> > recovery. Caribbean reefs have lost that ability to recover,
> Indo-Pacific
> > reefs have largely not. My impression is that some reefs in the Indian
> > Ocean have recovered from the 1998 El Nino mass bleaching, but others
> have
> > not. So it isn't universal. But the new graphs of world coral cover
> tell
> > us that lots of reefs have been able to recover enough that world coral
> > cover has been roughly steady at about 30% for decades. Surprising, yes.
> > Live and learn.
> > The world in some ways is now a small place, humans are now well
> > into the process of destroying SO much of it, not only on land but in the
> > oceans and even the atmosphere. That is undeniable. But this new
> evidence
> > may (may) indicate less corals have been lost that we often think. What
> > the original coral cover was like, IMHO (in my humble opinion) is not
> > really well established, there was far too few early studies. Fact is,
> if
> > you go diving and collect data, you can only cover a tiny area. There
> are
> > loads of reefs in the oceans out there that have received little or no
> > research, and almost all of those are in the Indo-Pacific, because it is
> > gigantic, even though coral reefs are a tiny proportion of the world
> > oceans. No one person has seen a majority of the world's coral reefs,
> and
> > only a few have seen a large number of them, my guess is people like Jack
> > Randall and Charlie Veron may have seen the most, I'm certainly not among
> > them, though I've seen some. So the rest of us have necessarily seen a
> > very unrepresentative sample of the world's coral reefs.
> > More powerful that the graphs of the world's coral reefs I think,
> > are the AIMS monitoring records of the Great Barrier Reef, itself not a
> > small place. And those records clearly show that huge loss of cover
> > followed by its recovery. It does not document any changes or stability
> in
> > community composition, no one claims that. But it shows that the reports
> > of the GBR being half dead, are from a past snapshot in time, and no
> longer
> > true. It has come back, Phoenix-like, from half dead (not by individual
> > corals coming back to life but the birth and growth of new individual
> > corals). That is the reality, I don't know anyone who disputes it.
> Nobody
> > has better data on the course over time of the corals on the GBR, as far
> as
> > I know, and it is plain for all to see.
> > That appears to be the reality, and I think we need to reflect
> > that. Which means we need to do a better job of making what we say
> reflect
> > reality. I think. Yes it is disconcerting to have our world view
> > challenged. So goes science and life. Mountains of data challenge the
> > views of those who said there was no global warming. Mountains of data
> > challenge the views of those who say there is no evolution, that God made
> > earth and the life on it exactly as it is today. Mountains of data
> > challenge the view the earth is flat. Maybe, just maybe, one of our more
> > cherished views, will need revision. The Great Barrier Reef and the
> > Indo-Pacific corals are not dead.
> > What happens in the future to coral reefs is quite disconnected
> to
> > what has already happened. But the Caribbean and Florida are surely a
> > window into what the future for the rest of the world's reefs are going
> to
> > experience in the next 20-30 years, by all accounts. The fact that not
> all
> > the reefs are already dead does not prove that corals will be just fine
> in
> > the future. And all the many observations and measurements documenting
> the
> > demise of reefs are real. Though some like those on the Great Barrier
> > Reef, may turn out to be followed by at least temporary recovery. Our
> > problem is that the places we have personally seen, and the places we
> have
> > studied most, are not either representative or a random sample of the
> > world's reefs, and so the very real info we have about the decline of
> > individual reefs is not totally representative of the world's reefs. The
> > data from the GBR appears to me to prove that, the world data now
> suggests
> > it.
> > So we live and learn. Cheers, Doug
> >
> > On Tue, Feb 8, 2022 at 7:04 AM Phillip Dustan via Coral-List <
> > coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:
> >
> >> Dear Listers,
> >> Coral monitoring began using transects that we first used to
> understand
> >> the distribution of corals on reefs. Scientists found that corals grow
> in
> >> patches dictated by the prevailing environmental conditions. These
> patches
> >> were frequently expressed as long bands or groves dominated by a few
> >> species that ran parallel to the shoreline or perpendicular to the
> >> prevailing seas. Tom Goreau's Ecology of West Indian Coral Reefs 1:
> >> Species Composition and Zonation as well as Pacific accounts by the
> likes
> >> of John Wells and others pointed this out beautifully. Coral cover in
> >> some
> >> zones was, and still may be, very high approaching 100% but it depends
> on
> >> the methodology. Does one count the intercolony spaces between Acropora
> >> palmata branches or foliose Agaricia plates? This was the great debate
> of
> >> the 1970-80's, "How best to measure coral cover"- lines, points, chains,
> >> photos, quadrats,........the quest was on for the ultimate measure.
> Some
> >> of us revisited out old study sites to look for change out of curiosity.
> >> Then, reefs began to die and coral monitoring became the mantra- Monitor
> >> reefs for conservation. Reef monitoring EXPLODED! In some places it
> >> became institutionalized. Fixed vs "random" sampling was the new
> dilemma;
> >> How many transects, photos, points- the search was on again for the
> >> "ultimate" measure.
> >> All the while reefs were winking out episodically. A rash of disease,
> or
> >> mass bleaching event would strike and coral cover would drop
> accordingly.
> >> Corals would regrow is the interval between acute stress was long
> enough.
> >> All the while though, oter factors continued to "eat away" are live
> >> corals.
> >> In places where I have remeasured the same reef, I have witnessed losses
> >> of
> >> over 90% in the Florida Keys where the zones were richly covered. On
> >> Dancing Lady Reef in Discovery Bay, Jamaica, the cover of Orbicella spp
> >> on
> >> the fore reef slope dropped from over 50% to less than 10 and from +25%
> to
> >> near 0% on the fore reef terrace (
> >> https://biospherefoundation.org/project/coral-reef-change/). This was
> >> just
> >> a single species and the reef was heavily covered with other species. My
> >> studies in NW Bali, Indonesia revealed a 44% loss from a single
> bleaching
> >> event as measured with repeat transects. The Bahamas yielded similar
> >> results due to bleaching combined with hurricanes. OVerall, the Florida
> >> Keys has lost over 38% cover since 1996 using repeated marked video
> >> transects.. My point is that these studies are all with repeated measure
> >> methods and they all reveal the same ecological slide into loss of
> >> ecological integrity. Detecting change is not the same as tabulating
> >> coral
> >> cover.
> >> A number of years ago I asked Listers if there were any healthy
> reefs
> >> in the Caribbean. It generated a raft of replies, but none positive.
> Maybe
> >> a few were missed and there are whole expeditions roaming the seas
> looking
> >> for healthy reefs now so they can be "protected". And liveaboard dive
> >> boats
> >> roam ply the tropics promising pristine adventures on ever increasingly
> >> more remote reefs (which are running out). Coral reefs are tough.
> They
> >> used to be hard to kill by natural means, but humans are a different
> >> story.
> >> Until we deal with how humanity integrates itself into the Biosphere, no
> >> reef or any other natural habitat for that matter, will be safe from
> >> humanity's global reach of destruction.
> >> We may be making a few tenuous steps in the right direction but you just
> >> can't put a happy face on any of this......
> >> Phil
> >>
> >>
> >> On Mon, Feb 7, 2022 at 7:00 PM Eugene Shinn via Coral-List <
> >> coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:
> >>
> >> > I agree with Alina Szmant's comments. I began diving in the Florida
> Keys
> >> > in the 1950s. Also visited many Caribbean reefs in the 1980s and
> 1990s.
> >> > All I saw was reefs going down hill after 1983 including those at San
> >> > Salvador which is located well east of the Main Bahama banks reefs.
> See
> >> > a portion of the dying Florida reefs
> >> > here:<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnIzLTi0HGs
> >> > <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnIzLTi0HGs>> Eugene Shinn
> >> >
> >> > _______________________________________________
> >> > Coral-List mailing list
> >> > Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> >> > https://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
> >> >
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Phillip Dustan PhD
> >> Charleston SC 29424
> >> 843-953-8086 office
> >> 843-224-3321 (mobile)
> >>
> >> "When we try to pick out anything by itself
> >> we find that it is bound fast by a thousand invisible cords
> >> that cannot be broken, to everything in the universe. "
> >> * John Muir 1869*
> >>
> >> *A Swim Through TIme on Carysfort Reef*
> >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCPJE7UE6sA
> >> *Raja Ampat Sustainability Project video*
> >>
> >>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RR2SazW_VY&fbclid=IwAR09oZkEk8wQkK6LN3XzVGPgAWSujACyUfe2Ist__nYxRRSkDE_jAYqkJ7A
> >> *Bali Coral Bleaching 2016 video*
> >>
> >> *https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxOfLTnPSUo
> >> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxOfLTnPSUo>*
> >> TEDx Charleston on saving coral reefs
> >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwENBNrfKj4
> >> Google Scholar Citations:
> >> https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=HCwfXZ0AAAAJ
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Coral-List mailing list
> >> Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> >> https://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
> >>
> >
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