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CORAL
REEFS AND GLOBAL CHANGE:
ADAPTATION,
ACCLIMATION OR EXTINCTION? INITIAL REPORT OF A SYMPOSIUM AND
WORKSHOP
EXECUTIVE
SUMMARY
Major revisions of concepts
about corals and reef systems were developed by an
international working group of scientific experts that met in
conjunction with the Society for Integrative and Comparative
Biology, the International Society for Reef Studies, and the
Ecological Society of America (Boston, January 3-11, 1998) to
evaluate the scientific basis for growing concerns about the
survival of coral reef ecosystems facing global change and
local stresses. The group, sponsored by the Scientific
Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR) and the Land-Ocean
Interactions in the Coastal Zone (LOICZ) core project of the
International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP), and with
the support of the NOAA Coastal Ocean Program, produced an
interdisciplinary synthesis with important implications for
research, assessment, and management. Key conclusions were:
- The calcification rates of
corals, coralline algae, and coral-algal communities
depends on the calcium carbonate saturation state of
surface seawater, and are expected to be reduced by rising
atmospheric carbon dioxide. This represents a global,
systemic, climate-related threat to the functioning of
reef ecosystems that will interact with the more immediate
anthropogenic local stresses.
- Coral reefs and communities
are products of processes operating over a wide range of
interacting time and space scales, with fundamentally
different controls operating at different scales. While
short-term responses will be controlled by local
environmental conditions and biotic responses, the
longer-term sustainability of a reef system depends on the
recruitment, dispersal, persistence, and interactions of
populations at larger scales.
- Corals, and to some extent
reef communities, possess numerous mechanisms for
acclimatization and adaptation -- diverse reproductive
strategies, flexible symbiotic relationships,
physiological acclimatization, habitat tolerance, and a
range of community interactions. However, current
understanding of these mechanisms, as well as of the
critically important calcification mechanisms, is
inadequate to explain the past success of corals and reefs
or to ensure their conservation for the future.
Unlike many terrestrial
ecosystems, coral reef ecosystems appear to be directly
threatened by globally increasing atmospheric CO2. Therefore,
conservation or management strategies aimed at removing or
mitigating only local, human-derived, or recently applied
environmental stresses are likely to be inadequate. Corals and
reefs are potentially robust and resilient, but realizing that
potential requires the development of new approaches and
greater integration of fundamental and applied research,
conservation, and management.
List of
sponsoring and supporting organizations:
Results are a report of Working
Group 104 of the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR),
which is co-sponsored by the Land-Ocean Interactions in the
Coastal Zone (LOICZ) core project of the International
Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP). Meeting support was
provided by the United State's National Oceanographic and
Atmospheric Administration's Coastal Ocean Program and the
Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB), with
meeting co-sponsorship by the International Society for Reef
Studies (ISRS), the Ecological Society of America (ESA), and
the New England Aquarium, Boston.
Symposium
Participants:
BUDDEMEIER, R.W., Kansas Geol
Survey, Univ. of Kansas, Lawrence. (WG-104 chair; Symposium
co-organizer)
LASKER, H. R., State University of New York, Univ. at Buffalo.
(Symposium co-organizer)
PITTOCK, A. B., CSIRO Div. of Atmospheric Research, Aspendale,
Australia
OPDYKE, B. N., Australian National University, Canberra
PANDOLFI, J. M., National Museum of Natural History,
Washington
KINZIE, R.A. III, Univ. of Hawaii, Honolulu.
GATES, R. D., Univ. of California, Los Angeles.
YAMAZATO, K., Meio University, Okinawa, Japan (paper read; not
present)
CARLSON, B. A., Waikiki Aquarium, Honolulu
BENZIE, J. A. H., Australian Inst. of Marine Science,
Townsville
POTTS, D. C., Univ. of California, Santa Cruz
ROWAN, R., Marine Lab., Univ. of Guam, Mangilao
BAK, R. P. M., Netherlands Inst. of Sea Research, Texel.
DONE, T. J., Australian Inst. of Marine Science, Townsville
KARLSON, R H.., Univ. of Delaware, Newark.
KLEYPAS, J., Nat. Center for Atmos. Research, Boulder
GATTUSO, J.-P., CNRS Observatoire Oceanologique,
Villefranche-sur-mer, France
HATCHER, B. G., Dalhousie Univ., Halifax, Canada.
SMITH, S. V., Univ. of Hawaii, Honolulu
For
further information contact:
Dr. Terry Done, AIMS
phone: +61 (07) 47534344
fax: +61 (07) 47725852
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