CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere, G.P.O. Box 1538, Hobart, Tasmania, 7001, Australia.
CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere, P.O. Box 2538, Brisbane, Queensland, 4001, Australia.
Conserv Biol. 2018 Dec;32(6):1356-1367. doi: 10.1111/cobi.13161. Epub 2018 Sep 7.
The decline of coral cover on Australia's Great Barrier Reef (GBR) has largely been attributed to the cumulative pressures of tropical cyclones, temperature-induced coral bleaching, and predation by crown-of-thorns starfish (CoTS). In such a complex system, the effectiveness of any management intervention will become apparent only over decadal time scales. Systems modeling approaches are therefore essential to formulating and testing alternative management strategies. For a network of reefs, we developed a metacommunity model that incorporated the cumulative pressures of tropical cyclones, coral bleaching, predation, and competition between corals. We then tested the response of coral cover to management interventions including catchment restoration to reduce discharge onto the reef during cyclone-induced flood events and enhanced protection of trophic networks supporting predation of CoTS. Model results showed good agreement with long-term monitoring of the GBR, including cyclical outbreaks of CoTS driven by predator-prey dynamics on the network of reefs. Testing of intervention strategies showed that catchment restoration would likely improve coral cover. However, strategies that combined catchment restoration with enhanced CoTS predation were far more effective than catchment restoration alone.
澳大利亚大堡礁（GBR）的珊瑚覆盖面积减少主要归因于热带气旋、温度引起的珊瑚白化和棘冠海星（CoTS）捕食的累积压力。在这样一个复杂的系统中，任何管理干预措施的有效性只有在几十年的时间尺度上才会显现出来。因此，系统建模方法对于制定和测试替代管理策略至关重要。对于一个珊瑚礁网络，我们开发了一个包含热带气旋、珊瑚白化、捕食和珊瑚之间竞争的累积压力的元社区模型。然后，我们测试了管理干预措施对珊瑚覆盖的响应，包括减少在热带气旋引发的洪水事件中排入珊瑚礁的径流量的集水区恢复，以及加强支持 CoTS 捕食的营养网络的保护。模型结果与 GBR 的长期监测结果吻合良好，包括由网络上的捕食者-猎物动态驱动的 CoTS 周期性爆发。干预策略的测试表明，集水区恢复可能会提高珊瑚覆盖率。然而，将集水区恢复与增强 CoTS 捕食相结合的策略比单独的集水区恢复更有效。
