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Eyal G, Laverick JH, Ben-Zvi O, Brown KT, Kramer N, Tamir R, Lindemann Y, Levy O, Pandolfi JM. Selective deep water coral bleaching occurs through depth isolation. Sci Total Environ 2022; 844:157180. [PMID: 35809731 DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.157180] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/29/2022] [Revised: 07/01/2022] [Accepted: 07/01/2022] [Indexed: 06/15/2023]
Abstract
Climate change is degrading coral reefs around the world. Mass coral bleaching events have become more frequent in recent decades, leading to dramatic declines in coral cover. Mesophotic coral ecosystems (30-150 m depth) comprise an estimated 50-80 % of global coral reef area. The potential for these to act as refuges from climate change is unresolved. Here, we report three mesophotic-specific coral bleaching events in the northern Red Sea over the course of eight years. Over the last decade, faster temperature increases at mesophotic depths resulted in ~50 % decline in coral populations, while the adjacent shallow coral reefs remained intact. Further, community structure shifted from hard coral dominated to turf algae dominated throughout these recurrent bleaching events. Our results do not falsify the notion of the northern Red Sea as a thermal refuge for shallow coral reefs, but question the capacity of mesophotic ecosystems to act as a universal tropical refuge.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gal Eyal
- Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and School of Biological Sciences, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia; The Mina & Everard Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel.
| | - Jack H Laverick
- Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK
| | - Or Ben-Zvi
- School of Zoology, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel; The Interuniversity Institute for Marine Sciences in Eilat, Eilat, Israel
| | - Kristen T Brown
- Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and School of Biological Sciences, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia; Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
| | - Netanel Kramer
- School of Zoology, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel
| | - Raz Tamir
- School of Zoology, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel; The Interuniversity Institute for Marine Sciences in Eilat, Eilat, Israel
| | - Yoav Lindemann
- The Interuniversity Institute for Marine Sciences in Eilat, Eilat, Israel; The Fredy & Nadine Herrmann Institute of Earth Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel
| | - Oren Levy
- The Mina & Everard Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel; The Interuniversity Institute for Marine Sciences in Eilat, Eilat, Israel
| | - John M Pandolfi
- Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and School of Biological Sciences, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
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