Commentary: Managing Recovery Resilience in Coral Reefs Against Climate-Induced Bleaching and Hurricanes: A 15 Year Case Study From Bonaire, Dutch Caribbean

Erik H Meesters,Fleur C Van Duyl,Rolf P M Bak

doi:10.3389/fmars.2020.00346

Abstract

Commentary: Managing Recovery Resilience in Coral Reefs Against Climate-Induced Bleaching and Hurricanes: A 15 Year Case Study From Bonaire, Dutch Caribbean

Highlights

In a recent Caribbean wide review by Jackson et al (2014) all available coral cover data till 2012 were compiled and for Bonaire results for each research group are shown in Figure 1 (Figure 6.2 page 185 in the Jackson et al, 2014 report)
It is evident from this figure that cover estimates of Steneck and coworkers are quite high compared to the other research groups and again in Steneck et al (2019) they are so high that the authors claim that Bonaire with an average coral cover of ∼47% is doing better than the Caribbean maximum measured in the period 1970-1983
Throughout the manuscript this significant claim is at no point compared to other recent assessments of the Bonaire reef status, even though these coral cover estimates are significantly higher than data for Bonaire collected by us since the 70’s (Bak and Nieuwland, 1995; Bak et al, 2005; De Bakker et al, 2016, 2017) and other researchers (e.g., Sommer et al, 2011)

Summary

Introduction

In a recent Caribbean wide review by Jackson et al (2014) all available coral cover data till 2012 were compiled and for Bonaire results for each research group are shown in Figure 1 (Figure 6.2 page 185 in the Jackson et al, 2014 report). Throughout the manuscript this significant claim is at no point compared to other recent assessments of the Bonaire reef status, even though these coral cover estimates are significantly higher than data for Bonaire collected by us since the 70’s (Bak and Nieuwland, 1995; Bak et al, 2005; De Bakker et al, 2016, 2017) and other researchers (e.g., Sommer et al, 2011).

Results

Conclusion