The Swire Institute of Marine Science, The University of Hong Kong, Cape D'Aguilar Road, Shek O, Hong Kong SAR, China.
School of Biological Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Pok Fu Lam, Hong Kong SAR, China.
Sci Adv. 2020 Oct 2;6(40). doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abb1046. Print 2020 Oct.
Observations of coral reef losses to climate change far exceed our understanding of historical degradation before anthropogenic warming. This is a critical gap to fill as conservation efforts simultaneously work to reverse climate change while restoring coral reef diversity and function. Here, we focused on southern China's Greater Bay Area, where coral communities persist despite centuries of coral mining, fishing, dredging, development, and pollution. We compared subfossil assemblages with modern-day communities and revealed a 40% decrease in generic diversity, concomitant to a shift from competitive to stress-tolerant species dominance since the mid-Holocene. Regions with characteristically poor water quality-high chl-, dissolved inorganic nitrogen, and turbidity-had lower contemporary diversity and the greatest community composition shift observed in the past, driven by the near extirpation of These observations highlight the urgent need to mitigate local stressors from development in concert with curbing greenhouse gas emissions.
观测到的珊瑚礁因气候变化而丧失的情况远远超过了我们对人类活动导致变暖之前的历史退化程度的理解。在保护工作同时努力扭转气候变化的同时，恢复珊瑚礁的多样性和功能，这是一个亟待填补的空白。在这里，我们关注的是中国南方的大湾区，尽管那里经历了几个世纪的珊瑚开采、捕捞、疏浚、开发和污染，珊瑚群落仍然存在。我们将化石记录与现代群落进行了比较，发现自从全新世中期以来，珊瑚的属多样性下降了 40%，同时从有竞争力的物种向耐受压力的物种占优势转变。特征性水质较差的地区——高叶绿素、溶解无机氮和浊度——具有较低的当代多样性，以及过去观察到的最大的群落组成变化，这是由近于灭绝的物种驱动的。这些观察结果强调了迫切需要减轻发展带来的当地压力，同时遏制温室气体排放。
