Earth and Life Institute (ELI), UCLouvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.
Ecole Normale Supérieure de Paris (ENS), Paris, France.
Glob Chang Biol. 2024 Jun;30(6):e17382. doi: 10.1111/gcb.17382.
Climate change poses an existential threat to coral reefs. A warmer and more acidic ocean weakens coral ecosystems and increases the intensity of hurricanes. The wind-wave-current interactions during a hurricane deeply change the ocean circulation patterns and hence potentially affect the dispersal of coral larvae and coral disease agents. Here, we modeled the impact of major hurricane Irma (September 2017) on coral larval and stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD) connectivity in Florida's Coral Reef. We coupled high-resolution coastal ocean circulation and wave models to simulate the dispersal of virtual coral larvae and disease agents between thousands of reefs. While being a brief event, our results suggest the passage of hurricane Irma strongly increased the probability of long-distance exchanges while reducing larval supply. It created new connections that could promote coral resilience but also probably accelerated the spread of SCTLD by about a month. As they become more intense, hurricanes' double-edged effect will become increasingly pronounced, contributing to increased variability in transport patterns and an accelerated rate of change within coral reef ecosystems.
气候变化对珊瑚礁构成了生存威胁。海洋变暖且酸化会削弱珊瑚生态系统，并加剧飓风的强度。飓风期间风-浪-流的相互作用会深度改变海洋环流模式，从而可能影响珊瑚幼虫和珊瑚疾病病原体的扩散。在这里，我们模拟了 2017 年 9 月的主要飓风“艾玛”对佛罗里达州珊瑚礁中珊瑚幼虫和石珊瑚组织损失疾病（SCTLD）连通性的影响。我们将高分辨率沿海海洋环流和波浪模型耦合起来，以模拟虚拟珊瑚幼虫和疾病病原体在数千个珊瑚礁之间的扩散。虽然这是一个短暂的事件，但我们的结果表明，飓风“艾玛”的过境大大增加了长距离交换的可能性，同时减少了幼虫供应。它创造了新的连接，这可能促进珊瑚的恢复能力，但也可能使 SCTLD 的传播速度加快约一个月。随着飓风变得更加剧烈，其双重影响将变得更加明显，导致运输模式的变化和珊瑚礁生态系统内变化速度的加快。
