Programa de Biodiversidad y Ecosistemas Marinos, Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas y Costeras-INVEMAR, Santa Marta, Colombia.
Laboratorio de Biología Molecular Marina-BIOMMAR, Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia.
PeerJ. 2023 Apr 12;11:e15057. doi: 10.7717/peerj.15057. eCollection 2023.
Coral reef decline is an issue of concern around the globe. Remote and uninhabited coral areas are not exempt from facing changes in species composition and functionality due to global drivers. Quitasueño is a remote atoll within the Seaflower Biosphere Reserve, in the Southwestern Caribbean Sea. To evaluate the current status of the coral reefs in Quitasueño we sampled 120 stations through Rapid Ecological Assessment and evaluated four stations through Planar Point Intercept to compare the current percent cover of benthic groups with previous studies in the area. We found pronounced changes in coral and macroalgae covers in time, and great conspicuousness of multiple conditions of deterioration along Quitasueño, including diseases, coral predation, and aggression and invasion of coral colonies by macroalgae and sponges. The reef ecosystem seems to be facing a phase shift, in which the benthic cover previously dominated by hard corals is currently dominated by fleshy macroalgae. It is essential to evaluate the possible drivers of the extent of degradation of Quitasueño to understand the process of deterioration and mitigate the impacts.
珊瑚礁衰退是一个全球性关注的问题。由于全球驱动因素的影响，偏远和无人居住的珊瑚区域也不能免除物种组成和功能变化的影响。Quitasueno 是加勒比海南部海花生物保护区内的一个偏远环礁。为了评估 Quitasueño 珊瑚礁的现状，我们通过快速生态评估对 120 个站点进行了采样，并通过平面点截距对 4 个站点进行了评估，以比较当前底栖生物组的覆盖率与该地区以前的研究。我们发现，珊瑚和大型藻类的覆盖在时间上发生了明显变化，而且 Quitasueño 出现了多种恶化情况，包括疾病、珊瑚捕食、珊瑚群落被藻类和海绵侵袭和侵占等，情况非常明显。珊瑚礁生态系统似乎正在经历一个阶段转变，以前由硬珊瑚主导的底栖覆盖物目前由肉质大型藻类主导。评估 Quitasueño 退化程度的可能驱动因素至关重要，以便了解恶化过程并减轻其影响。
