Towards Coral Reef Resilience

<jats:p>Coral reef habitats provide valuable ecosystem services which have benefitted human society for millennia, but intense anthropogenic pressure, especially in the latter part of the last century, has resulted in widespread habitat degradation and loss of ecosystem services with severe environmental and societal consequences [...]</jats:p>

section_content: maintaining the two dominant species Porites compressa and Montipora capitata. However, a coral species compositional shift was attributed to the local loss of two species (Pocillopora meandrina and Porites lobata), replaced by a previously unrecorded species (Leptastrea purpurea). A significant decrease of the alga Dictyosphaeria, dominant in 2000, was seen together with the loss of Gracilaria salicornia and Kappaphycus alvarezii, accompanying an increase in non-coral substrate cover. The authors caution that while the reef system displayed resilience, the response may not be sufficiently swift to tolerate future temperature elevation and increasing bleaching frequency [3]. 

Keshavmurthy et al [4]. analyzed spatial and temporal (1986 to 2019) dynamics of corals in Kenting National Park (KNP), southern Taiwan, which features a fluctuating thermal environment induced by a branch of the Kuroshio Current and tide-induced upwelling that favored thermally-resistant corals, especially those close to the thermal effluent of a nuclear power plant. Major typhoons and bleaching caused coral cover fluctuations and spatial heterogeneity in coral cover recovery suggesting variable degrees of reef resilience between localities. Corals exposed to progressively warmer and fluctuating thermal environments possessed the ability to modify their endosymbiont community with a dominance shift to the thermally-tolerant Durusdinium spp. and reduce bleaching. Their study indicated that within a small geographical range with unique environmental settings and ecological characteristics, corals may be resilient to bleaching. They highlight the relevance of conservation efforts that are resilience-based to address climate change challenges [4]. 

An assessment of the resilience potential of inshore and offshore reef communities in the western part of the Gulf of Thailand by Sutthacheep et al. [5] over the last two decades showed that some sites in both areas had low resilience to bleaching. These reefs were also exposed to anthropogenic disturbances. However, some sites both inshore and offshore had high resilience potential based on bleaching survival rates although juvenile coral density was low. At most sites, juvenile coral density was not dependent on adult coral cover, particularly for Acropora. The authors recommend that resilience-based management should take into consideration natural processes that promote the resistance and recovery of corals, appropriate restoration efforts, and physical interventions such as shading during bleaching events. 

Whether a reef is resilient to disturbance is challenging to uncover as it requires understanding of corals' susceptibility to and recovery from various stressors, which are often interacting with immense complexity. As presented in a number of the contributions here, evaluating the resilience of natural reefs requires long-term community data (>2 decades) and high-resolution environmental measurements. Due to the multiple factors involved, it is of no surprise that reef conditions and recovery outcomes post-disturbance are variable over relatively small spatial scales. These studies, and others emerging over the last decade, provide insight into the trajectories of coral reefs amidst more severe and frequent climate-related perturbations, including the possible scenario in which corals continue to survive and even dominate certain reefs, but with dramatic transformations at community to molecular levels. To anticipate these changes, restoration and management approaches must consider building resilience factors into coral reefs to future-proof these diverse and beneficial ecosystems.

section_name: Acknowledgments:

section_content: Funding: This research received no external funding.

section_content: The authors thank the contributors of the five papers for their positive and timely response to this special volume. The papers presented interesting observations especially from long-term monitoring and valuable insights on reef resilience, making our work of writing the editorial so much easier.
section_name: Acknowledgments:

section_name: Conflicts of Interest:

section_content: Author Contributions: Both authors wrote this Editorial based on a synthesis of the findings presented in the five contributions to this special volume. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

section_content: The authors declare no conflict of interest.
section_name: Conflicts of Interest: