Overfishing and nutrient pollution interact with temperature to disrupt coral reefs down to microbial scales
Citations Over TimeTop 1% of 2016 papers
Abstract
Losses of corals worldwide emphasize the need to understand what drives reef decline. Stressors such as overfishing and nutrient pollution may reduce resilience of coral reefs by increasing coral-algal competition and reducing coral recruitment, growth and survivorship. Such effects may themselves develop via several mechanisms, including disruption of coral microbiomes. Here we report the results of a 3-year field experiment simulating overfishing and nutrient pollution. These stressors increase turf and macroalgal cover, destabilizing microbiomes, elevating putative pathogen loads, increasing disease more than twofold and increasing mortality up to eightfold. Above-average temperatures exacerbate these effects, further disrupting microbiomes of unhealthy corals and concentrating 80% of mortality in the warmest seasons. Surprisingly, nutrients also increase bacterial opportunism and mortality in corals bitten by parrotfish, turning normal trophic interactions deadly for corals. Thus, overfishing and nutrient pollution impact reefs down to microbial scales, killing corals by sensitizing them to predation, above-average temperatures and bacterial opportunism.
Related Papers
- → Human influences on coastal ecosystems: does overfishing create trophic cascades?(1998)150 cited
- → Length-based indicators of fishery and ecosystem status: Glover's Reef Marine Reserve, Belize(2013)70 cited
- → Demography of the largest and most endangered Brazilian parrotfish, Scarus trispinosus, reveals overfishing(2020)24 cited
- → Parrotfish sex ratios recover rapidly in Bermuda following a fishing ban(2015)18 cited
- → Overfishing Affects More than Fish Populations: Trophic Cascades and Regime Shifts in the Black Sea(2008)8 cited