Marine Programs, Wildlife Conservation Society, Bronx, New York, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2012;7(8):e42884. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0042884. Epub 2012 Aug 29.
Managing coral reefs for resilience to climate change is a popular concept but has been difficult to implement because the empirical scientific evidence has either not been evaluated or is sometimes unsupportive of theory, which leads to uncertainty when considering methods and identifying priority reefs. We asked experts and reviewed the scientific literature for guidance on the multiple physical and biological factors that affect the ability of coral reefs to resist and recover from climate disturbance. Eleven key factors to inform decisions based on scaling scientific evidence and the achievability of quantifying the factors were identified. Factors important to resistance and recovery, which are important components of resilience, were not strongly related, and should be assessed independently. The abundance of resistant (heat-tolerant) coral species and past temperature variability were perceived to provide the greatest resistance to climate change, while coral recruitment rates, and macroalgae abundance were most influential in the recovery process. Based on the 11 key factors, we tested an evidence-based framework for climate change resilience in an Indonesian marine protected area. The results suggest our evidence-weighted framework improved upon existing un-weighted methods in terms of characterizing resilience and distinguishing priority sites. The evaluation supports the concept that, despite high ecological complexity, relatively few strong variables can be important in influencing ecosystem dynamics. This is the first rigorous assessment of factors promoting coral reef resilience based on their perceived importance, empirical evidence, and feasibility of measurement. There were few differences between scientists' perceptions of factor importance and the scientific evidence found in journal publications but more before and after impact studies will be required to fully test the validity of all the factors. The methods here will increase the feasibility and defensibility of including key resilience metrics in evaluations of coral reefs, as well as reduce costs. Adaptation, marine protected areas, priority setting, resistance, recovery.
管理珊瑚礁以提高其对气候变化的韧性是一个流行的概念，但由于实证科学证据要么未被评估，要么有时与理论不符，这导致在考虑方法和确定优先珊瑚礁时存在不确定性。我们向专家请教并审查了科学文献，以了解影响珊瑚礁抵御和从气候干扰中恢复能力的多种物理和生物因素。确定了 11 个关键因素，以便根据可量化因素的科学证据和可实现性做出决策。对抵抗和恢复至关重要的因素（韧性的重要组成部分）之间没有很强的相关性，应独立评估。具有抗逆性（耐热）珊瑚物种的丰度和过去温度变异性被认为是对气候变化提供最大抗性的因素，而珊瑚繁殖率和大型藻类丰度在恢复过程中最具影响力。基于这 11 个关键因素，我们在印度尼西亚的一个海洋保护区中测试了一个基于证据的气候变化韧性框架。结果表明，我们的基于证据的框架在描述韧性和区分优先地点方面优于现有的非加权方法。评估结果支持了这样一种概念，即尽管生态系统具有高度复杂性，但只有少数几个强有力的变量可能对影响生态系统动态具有重要意义。这是首次根据其感知重要性、实证证据和可测量性对促进珊瑚礁韧性的因素进行的严格评估。科学家对因素重要性的看法与期刊出版物中发现的科学证据之间几乎没有差异，但需要更多的影响前和影响后研究来全面检验所有因素的有效性。这里的方法将提高在珊瑚礁评估中包含关键韧性指标的可行性和可辩护性，并降低成本。适应，海洋保护区，优先事项设定，抵抗，恢复。
