Twenty years of change in benthic communities across the Belizean Barrier Reef.
Disease, storms, ocean warming, and pollution have caused the mass mortality of reef-building corals across the Caribbean over the last four decades. Subsequently, stony corals have been replaced by macroalgae, bacterial mats, and invertebrates including soft corals and sponges, causing changes to t...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
2022-01-01
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| Series: | PLoS ONE |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249155 |
| _version_ | 1818323584398917632 |
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| author | Catherine Alves Abel Valdivia Richard B Aronson Nadia Bood Karl D Castillo Courtney Cox Clare Fieseler Zachary Locklear Melanie McField Laura Mudge James Umbanhowar John F Bruno |
| author_facet | Catherine Alves Abel Valdivia Richard B Aronson Nadia Bood Karl D Castillo Courtney Cox Clare Fieseler Zachary Locklear Melanie McField Laura Mudge James Umbanhowar John F Bruno |
| author_sort | Catherine Alves |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Disease, storms, ocean warming, and pollution have caused the mass mortality of reef-building corals across the Caribbean over the last four decades. Subsequently, stony corals have been replaced by macroalgae, bacterial mats, and invertebrates including soft corals and sponges, causing changes to the functioning of Caribbean reef ecosystems. Here we describe changes in the absolute cover of benthic reef taxa, including corals, gorgonians, sponges, and algae, at 15 fore-reef sites (12-15m depth) across the Belizean Barrier Reef (BBR) from 1997 to 2016. We also tested whether Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), in which fishing was prohibited but likely still occurred, mitigated these changes. Additionally, we determined whether ocean-temperature anomalies (measured via satellite) or local human impacts (estimated using the Human Influence Index, HII) were related to changes in benthic community structure. We observed a reduction in the cover of reef-building corals, including the long-lived, massive corals Orbicella spp. (from 13 to 2%), and an increase in fleshy and corticated macroalgae across most sites. These and other changes to the benthic communities were unaffected by local protection. The covers of hard-coral taxa, including Acropora spp., Montastraea cavernosa, Orbicella spp., and Porites spp., were negatively related to the frequency of ocean-temperature anomalies. Only gorgonian cover was related, negatively, to our metric of the magnitude of local impacts (HII). Our results suggest that benthic communities along the BBR have experienced disturbances that are beyond the capacity of the current management structure to mitigate. We recommend that managers devote greater resources and capacity to enforcing and expanding existing marine protected areas and to mitigating local stressors, and most importantly, that government, industry, and the public act immediately to reduce global carbon emissions. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-13T11:15:01Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-61551d92d4cb4fecb4d6ca0ae62b1a21 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1932-6203 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-13T11:15:01Z |
| publishDate | 2022-01-01 |
| publisher | Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
| record_format | Article |
| series | PLoS ONE |
| spelling | doaj.art-61551d92d4cb4fecb4d6ca0ae62b1a212022-12-21T23:48:38ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032022-01-01171e024915510.1371/journal.pone.0249155Twenty years of change in benthic communities across the Belizean Barrier Reef.Catherine AlvesAbel ValdiviaRichard B AronsonNadia BoodKarl D CastilloCourtney CoxClare FieselerZachary LocklearMelanie McFieldLaura MudgeJames UmbanhowarJohn F BrunoDisease, storms, ocean warming, and pollution have caused the mass mortality of reef-building corals across the Caribbean over the last four decades. Subsequently, stony corals have been replaced by macroalgae, bacterial mats, and invertebrates including soft corals and sponges, causing changes to the functioning of Caribbean reef ecosystems. Here we describe changes in the absolute cover of benthic reef taxa, including corals, gorgonians, sponges, and algae, at 15 fore-reef sites (12-15m depth) across the Belizean Barrier Reef (BBR) from 1997 to 2016. We also tested whether Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), in which fishing was prohibited but likely still occurred, mitigated these changes. Additionally, we determined whether ocean-temperature anomalies (measured via satellite) or local human impacts (estimated using the Human Influence Index, HII) were related to changes in benthic community structure. We observed a reduction in the cover of reef-building corals, including the long-lived, massive corals Orbicella spp. (from 13 to 2%), and an increase in fleshy and corticated macroalgae across most sites. These and other changes to the benthic communities were unaffected by local protection. The covers of hard-coral taxa, including Acropora spp., Montastraea cavernosa, Orbicella spp., and Porites spp., were negatively related to the frequency of ocean-temperature anomalies. Only gorgonian cover was related, negatively, to our metric of the magnitude of local impacts (HII). Our results suggest that benthic communities along the BBR have experienced disturbances that are beyond the capacity of the current management structure to mitigate. We recommend that managers devote greater resources and capacity to enforcing and expanding existing marine protected areas and to mitigating local stressors, and most importantly, that government, industry, and the public act immediately to reduce global carbon emissions.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249155 |
| spellingShingle | Catherine Alves Abel Valdivia Richard B Aronson Nadia Bood Karl D Castillo Courtney Cox Clare Fieseler Zachary Locklear Melanie McField Laura Mudge James Umbanhowar John F Bruno Twenty years of change in benthic communities across the Belizean Barrier Reef. PLoS ONE |
| title | Twenty years of change in benthic communities across the Belizean Barrier Reef. |
| title_full | Twenty years of change in benthic communities across the Belizean Barrier Reef. |
| title_fullStr | Twenty years of change in benthic communities across the Belizean Barrier Reef. |
| title_full_unstemmed | Twenty years of change in benthic communities across the Belizean Barrier Reef. |
| title_short | Twenty years of change in benthic communities across the Belizean Barrier Reef. |
| title_sort | twenty years of change in benthic communities across the belizean barrier reef |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249155 |
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