The reduction in coral cover on many contemporary tropical reefs suggests a different set of coral community assemblages will dominate future reefs. To evaluate the capacity of reef corals to persist over various time scales, we examined coral community dynamics in contemporary, fossil, and simulated future coral reef ecosystems. Based on studies between 1987 and 2012 at two locations in the Caribbean, and between 1981 and 2013 at five locations in the Indo-Pacific, we show that many coral genera declined in abundance, some showed no change in abundance, and a few coral genera increased in abundance. Whether the abundance of a genus declined, increased, or was conserved, was independent of coral family. An analysis of fossil-reef communities in the Caribbean revealed changes in numerical dominance and relative abundances of coral genera, and demonstrated that neither dominance nor taxon was associated with persistence. As coral family was a poor predictor of performance on contemporary reefs, a trait-based, dynamic, multi-patch model was developed to explore the phenotypic basis of ecological performance in a warmer future. Sensitivity analyses revealed that upon exposure to thermal stress, thermal tolerance, growth rate, and longevity were the most important predictors of coral persistence. Together, our results underscore the high variation in the rates and direction of change in coral abundances on contemporary and fossil reefs. Given this variation, it remains possible that coral reefs will be populated by a subset of the present coral fauna in a future that is warmer than the recent past.
Department of Biology, California State University Northridge, Northridge, California, United States of America;Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, Unité de Recherche CoReUs, Observatoire Océanologique de Banyuls, Banyuls-sur-Mer, France;Laboratoire d'Excellence;Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California Davis, Davis, California, United States of America;Department of Biology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, United States of America;Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, United States of America;Department of Biology, California State University Northridge, Northridge, California, United States of America;Center for Population Biology, University of California Davis, Davis, California, United States of America;National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium, Taiwan, Republic of China;Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, University of Hawaii, Kaneohe, Hawaii, United States of America;Biomathematics Program, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, United States of America;Department of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology and the Coastal Research Center, Marine Science Institute, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California, United States of America;National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, Santa Barbara, California, United States of America;Department of Biology, California State University Northridge, Northridge, California, United States of America;Department of Biology, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, United States of America;Department of Geological Sciences, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida, United States of America;Wildlife Conservation Society, Marine Program, Bronx, New York, United States of America;National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, Santa Barbara, California, United States of America;Australian Institute of Marine Science, Townsville, Queensland, Australia;The Cawthron Institute, Nelson, New Zealand;Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, University of Hawaii, Kaneohe, Hawaii, United States of America;Center for Marine and Environmental Studies, University of the Virgin Islands, St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, United States of America;The University of Western Australia Oceans Institute and the Centre for Microscopy, Characterisation and Analysis, University of Western Australia, Crawley, Western Australia, Australia;Australian Institute of Marine Science, Townsville, Queensland, Australia;Department of Biological Sciences, Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Florida, United States of America;Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, University of Hawaii, Kaneohe, Hawaii, United States of America
Recommended Citation:
Peter J. Edmunds,Mehdi Adjeroud,Marissa L. Baskett,et al. Persistence and Change in Community Composition of Reef Corals through Present, Past, and Future Climates[J]. PLOS ONE,2014-01-01,9(10)