Contributions of traits and life history strategies to the temporal ecological resilience of coral communities

The global decline of coral reef ecosystems indicates that despite conservation efforts to manage for resilience, climate change and other anthropogenic disturbances are continuing to drive degradation. Current management... [ view full abstract ]

The global decline of coral reef ecosystems indicates that despite conservation efforts to manage for resilience, climate change and other anthropogenic disturbances are continuing to drive degradation. Current management approaches focus on minimising local impacts, but may be insufficient or inappropriate for reducing the risks from global climate change. However, the picture is not uniform, and the variable responses of coral reefs to disturbance, even at relatively small scales, have been well documented. This heterogeneity presents an opportunity to consider local management that can prioritise the most ecologically resilient reefs. Enhancing our understanding of ecological resilience temporally, and over smaller spatial scales, can support localised decision-making and facilitate adaptive management in to the future.

This study examines changes in coral community composition in the Indo-Pacific, and attempts to identify traits via established life history strategies and how they relate to long-term resilience. Changes in the abundance of these strategies over time, with environmental gradients and disturbance histories will be discussed. Preliminary results from this ongoing analysis indicate that varying life history strategies in corals elicit different responses to disturbance. Using an approach based on traits and life history strategies makes these results more comparable at a global scale, and lends support to empirically-led conservation decision-making that can help to improve and adapt local management regimes.