Ribas-Deulofeu Lauriane, Denis Vianney, Château Pierre-Alexandre, Chen Chaolun Allen
Biodiversity Research Center, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan.
Taiwan International Graduate Program-Biodiversity, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan.
PeerJ. 2021 Jul 23;9:e11744. doi: 10.7717/peerj.11744. eCollection 2021.
Over the past few decades, extreme events-such as ocean warming, typhoons, and coral bleaching-have been increasing in intensity and frequency, threatening coral reefs from the physiological to ecosystem level. In the present study, the impacts of rising seawater temperatures, typhoons, and coral bleaching events on benthic communities were seasonally assessed over a 21 month-period, using photo-transects at 11 sites in Kenting National Park (KNP), Taiwan. Between August 2015 and April 2017, seven typhoon events were recorded and seawater temperatures in KNP reached a maximum of 31.2 °C, as opposed to an average maximum SST of 28.8 °C (2007-2016). The state and response of benthic communities to these events were interpreted based on the environmental conditions of KNP. The repeated storms lowered the levels of thermal stress during the 2015-2016 El Niño event and may have mitigated its impact on the Taiwanese coral reefs. However, storm-induced local shifts from coral to macro-algae dominance were observed. Storms may mitigate the negative effects of heatwaves, but the mechanical damage induced by the storms may also decrease the structural complexity of reefs and their associated diversity. Eventually, despite reef persistence, the composition and function of remnant communities may profoundly diverge from those in regions with less active storms.
在过去几十年里，诸如海洋变暖、台风和珊瑚白化等极端事件的强度和频率不断增加，从生理层面到生态系统层面威胁着珊瑚礁。在本研究中，利用台湾垦丁国家公园（KNP）11个地点的照片样带，在21个月的时间里季节性地评估了海水温度上升、台风和珊瑚白化事件对底栖生物群落的影响。2015年8月至2017年4月期间，记录到7次台风事件，垦丁国家公园的海水温度最高达到31.2°C，而2007 - 2016年的平均最高海表温度为28.8°C。根据垦丁国家公园的环境条件解释了底栖生物群落对这些事件的状态和响应。在2015 - 2016年厄尔尼诺事件期间，反复的风暴降低了热应力水平，可能减轻了其对台湾珊瑚礁的影响。然而，观察到风暴导致局部从珊瑚主导转变为大型藻类主导。风暴可能减轻热浪的负面影响，但风暴造成的机械损伤也可能降低珊瑚礁的结构复杂性及其相关的多样性。最终，尽管珊瑚礁得以存续，但残余群落的组成和功能可能与风暴活动较少地区的群落有很大差异。
