[Coral-List] New Publication: Stories told by corals, algae, and sea-urchins in a Mesoamerican coral reef: degradation trumps succession

[Isael Victoria]

Hello everyone.

I want to share my recent paper: "Stories told by corals, algae, and
sea-urchins in a Mesoamerican coral reef: degradation trumps succession".
Hope you find it interesting.
https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.14680

Please contact me if you have any questions.

Regards,

Isael Victoria-Salazar
Freelance Researcher

Abstract:

Understanding the mechanisms that allow the permanence of coral reefs and
the constancy of their characteristics is necessary to alleviate the
effects of chronic environmental changes. After a disturbance, healthy
coral reefs display trajectories that allow regaining coral cover and the
establishment of framework building corals. Through a comparative approach,
in a patch reef partially affected by a ship grounding, we analyzed the
successional trajectories in affected and unaffected sectors. Fleshy algae
(which do not promote the recruitment of corals) dominated the reef surface
irrespective of the impact of the ship grounding incident. *Acropora* species
had near-zero contributions to community structure, whereas non-framework
building corals like *Porites* sp. had a slightly higher recruitment. Cover
of coral and calcareous crustose algae decreased over time, and neither the
latter nor adult coral colonies had any effect on the occurrence
probabilities of small corals. Sea urchin (*Diadema antillarum*) densities
were generally low, and thus unlikely to contribute to reverting algal
dominance. The successional trajectories of the community in the impacted
and non-impacted sectors of the coral patch reef agree with the inhibition
successional model, leading to the development of a degraded state
dominated by fleshy algae. It is probable that the stability and resilience
of this degraded state are high due to the ability of fleshy algae to
monopolize space, along with low coral recovery potential.