Cardoso Gabriel O, Kersting Diego K, Brachert Thomas C, Heiss Georg A, Leinfelder Reinhold, Maréchal Jean-Philippe, D'Olivo Juan Pablo
Institute of Geological Sciences, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
Instituto de Acuicultura de Torre de la Sal, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Ribera de Cabanes, Spain.
Sci Rep. 2025 Jul 2;15(1):23127. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-08709-5.
Anthropogenic stressors on Caribbean reefs have shifted coral dominance toward stress-tolerant species such as Siderastrea siderea, increasing their importance for reef construction. However, the sublethal responses of these corals to past stressors remain understudied, limiting our understanding of their long-term acclimatization capacity. Here, we reconstructed the annual skeletal growth rates (1912-2020) of twelve S. siderea coral colonies from Martinique (Caribbean Sea) and examined their relationships with changes in human population, sea surface temperature (SST), precipitation, river discharge, and agricultural indicators between 1950 and 2020. Long-term growth rate declines observed since the 1950s were initially associated with human population, a proxy for local stress. Warming SST enhanced coral skeletal growth between 1950 and 1985, suggesting optimal temperatures for calcification during this interval. However, skeletal density exhibited a multidecadal (1950-2020) parabolic response, indicating a surpassing of this thermal optimum in recent decades. This parabolic response included persistent skeletal density declines from 2010 to 2020, possibly related to cumulative thermal stress or the interaction with ocean acidification effects. Our findings suggest a limited acclimatization capacity of long-lived S. siderea corals to cumulative pressures in Martinique and highlight their vulnerability to the compounding effects of local stressors and climate change.
加勒比珊瑚礁面临的人为压力源已使珊瑚优势向耐胁迫物种如侧星珊瑚（Siderastrea siderea）转移，这增加了它们在珊瑚礁构建中的重要性。然而，这些珊瑚对过去压力源的亚致死反应仍未得到充分研究，限制了我们对其长期适应能力的理解。在此，我们重建了来自马提尼克岛（加勒比海）的12个侧星珊瑚群落的年度骨骼生长率（1912 - 2020年），并研究了它们与1950年至2020年间人口变化、海表温度（SST）、降水量、河流流量和农业指标之间的关系。自20世纪50年代以来观察到的长期生长率下降最初与人口有关，人口是当地压力的一个指标。1950年至1985年间，变暖的海表温度提高了珊瑚骨骼生长，表明该时间段内钙化的最佳温度。然而，骨骼密度呈现出多年代（1950 - 2020年）的抛物线反应，表明近几十年来超过了这个热最佳值。这种抛物线反应包括2010年至2020年骨骼密度持续下降，这可能与累积热应力或与海洋酸化效应的相互作用有关。我们的研究结果表明，长寿的侧星珊瑚对马提尼克岛累积压力的适应能力有限，并突出了它们对当地压力源和气候变化复合效应的脆弱性。
