Coral Communities on Marginal High-Latitude Reefs in West Australian Marine Parks
Open Access
Abstract
Many temperate reefs are experiencing a shift towards a greater abundance of tropical species in response to marine heatwaves and long-term ocean warming worldwide. Baseline data for coral communities growing in high-latitude reefs is required to better understand ecosystem changes over time. In this study, we explore spatial and temporal trends in the distribution of coral communities from 1999 to 2019 at 118 reef sites within the five marine parks located in the south-west of Western Australia (WA) between 30° to 35° S. Our estimates of coral cover were generally low (Turbinaria spp. at Marmion Marine Park and Ngari Capes Marine Park, and Pocillopora spp. and Dipsastraea spp. at Rottnest Island and Jurien Bay. Our findings suggest that conditions in south-west WA are favorable to the ongoing survival of existing genera and there were minimal signs of expansion in coral cover at most study sites. Coral cover and composition on these reefs may, however, change with ongoing ocean warming and increased occurrence of marine heatwaves. This study provides a valuable benchmark for assessing future changes in coral assemblages and highlights the need for targeted hard-coral surveys to quantify subtle changes in high-latitude coral community assemblages.Keywords
Funding Information
- Australian Research Council (LP150100761)
This publication has 80 references indexed in Scilit:
- Coverage, Diversity, and Functionality of a High-Latitude Coral Community (Tatsukushi, Shikoku Island, Japan)PLOS ONE, 2013
- Unprecedented Mass Bleaching and Loss of Coral across 12° of Latitude in Western Australia in 2010–11PLOS ONE, 2012
- Turning up the Heat: Increasing Temperature and Coral Bleaching at the High Latitude Coral Reefs of the Houtman Abrolhos IslandsPLOS ONE, 2012
- Rapid poleward range expansion of tropical reef corals in response to rising sea surface temperaturesGeophysical Research Letters, 2011
- Benthic assemblage composition on subtidal reefs along a latitudinal gradient in Western AustraliaEstuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science, 2010
- Dynamic fragility of oceanic coral reef ecosystemsProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2006
- Climate flickers and range shifts of reef coralsFrontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 2004
- Inference in Generalized Additive Mixed Models by Using Smoothing SplinesJournal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B: Statistical Methodology, 1999
- Fauna Associated with the Coral Pocillopora damicornis at the Southern Limit of its Distribution in Western AustraliaJournal of Biogeography, 1983
- Uranium-series age of coral reef growth on Rottnest Island, Western AustraliaMarine Geology, 1979