Drivers of region-wide declines in architectural complexity on Caribbean reefs

Severe declines in the cover of live hard coral on reefs have been reported worldwide, and in the Caribbean region, the architectural complexity of coral reefs has also declined markedly. While the drivers of coral cover loss are relatively well understood, little is known about the drivers of regio...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Coral reefs 2011-12, Vol.30 (4), p.1051-1060
Main Authors: Alvarez-Filip, Lorenzo, Gill, J. A., Dulvy, N. K., Perry, A. L., Watkinson, A. R., Côté, I. M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animal and plant ecology
Animal, plant and microbial ecology
Applied ecology
Biological and medical sciences
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Conservation, protection and management of environment and wildlife
Coral reefs
Environmental degradation: ecosystems survey and restoration
Environmental impact
Freshwater & Marine Ecology
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Habitats
Land degradation
Life Sciences
Marine
Marine biology
Oceanography
Sea water ecosystems
Synecology
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Summary:Severe declines in the cover of live hard coral on reefs have been reported worldwide, and in the Caribbean region, the architectural complexity of coral reefs has also declined markedly. While the drivers of coral cover loss are relatively well understood, little is known about the drivers of regional-scale declines in architectural complexity. We have used a dataset of 49 time series reporting reef architectural complexity to explore the effect of hurricanes, coral bleaching and fishing on Caribbean-wide annual rates of change in reef complexity. Hurricane impacts greatly influence reef complexity, with the most rapid rates of decline in complexity occurring at sites impacted during their survey period, and with lower rates of loss occurring at unimpacted sites. Reef architectural complexity did not change significantly following mass bleaching events (in a time frame of
ISSN:0722-4028
1432-0975
DOI:10.1007/s00338-011-0795-6