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. 2016 Oct 3:6:34720.
doi: 10.1038/srep34720.

Coral recovery in the central Maldives archipelago since the last major mass-bleaching, in 1998

C Pisapia  1 , D Burn  2 , R Yoosuf  3 , A Najeeb  3 , K D Anderson  1 , M S Pratchett  1
Affiliations

Coral recovery in the central Maldives archipelago since the last major mass-bleaching, in 1998

C Pisapia et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

Increasing frequency and severity of disturbances is causing global degradation of coral reef ecosystems. This study examined temporal changes in live coral cover and coral composition in the central Maldives from 1997 to 2016, encompassing two bleaching events, a tsunami, and an outbreak of Acanthaster planci. We also examined the contemporary size structure for five dominant coral taxa (tabular Acropora, Acropora muricata, Acropora humilis, Pocillopora spp, and massive Porites). Total coral cover increased throughout the study period, with marked increases following the 1998 mass-bleaching. The relative abundance of key genera has changed through time, where Acropora and Pocillopora (which are highly susceptible to bleaching) were under-represented following 1998 mass-bleaching but increased until outbreaks of A. planci in 2015. The contemporary size-structure for all coral taxa was dominated by larger colonies with peaked distributions suggesting that recent disturbances had a disproportionate impact on smaller colonies, or that recruitment is currently limited. This may suggest that coral resilience has been compromised by recent disturbances, and further bleaching (expected in 2016) could lead to highly protracted recovery times. We showed that Maldivian reefs recovered following the 1998 mass-bleaching event, but it took up to a decade, and ongoing disturbances may be eroding reef resilience.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Variation in mean (±95% CL) coral cover at 5 meters in all study sites.
The occurrence of the 1998 and 2010 coral bleaching events, the tsunami in 2004 and outbreaks of A. planci in 2015 is shown with arrows. Data for 2016 were collected during the present study, while historical data on study sites from 1997 to 2013 were extrapolated from.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Temporal variation in mean percentage live coral cover (±95% CL) of major coral genera Acropora, Pocillopora and Porites at the study sites at 5 m and 10 m depth in 1998, 2009 and 2016.
Figure 3
Figure 3. Log-transformed and untransformed size-frequency distributions of Acropora muricata, tabular Acropora, Acropora humilis, Pocillopora spp and Porites spp.
The dark line indicates average partial mortality (%) for each size class.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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