Abstract
Ocean acidification and warming are two of the many threats to coral reefs worldwide, and Caribbean reef-building corals are especially vulnerable. However, even within the Caribbean, experimental acidification and warming studies reveal a wide array of coral calcification responses across reef systems and among species, complicating efforts to predict how corals will respond to these global-scale stressors. We conducted a meta-analysis to investigate the calcification responses of Caribbean corals to experimentally induced seawater ocean acidification, ocean warming, and the combination of both stressors. Calcification rates were reduced for corals reared under warming alone, but acidification and the combination of both stressors did not clearly reduce calcification rates. Calcification responses of corals collected from the Florida Keys and Belize were compared for regional differences since a greater number of studies were performed on corals collected from these two regions. Notably, corals from the Florida Keys did not exhibit reduced calcification under acidification, warming, or the combination of both stressors, while corals from Belize exhibited reduced calcification under warming alone. Further investigation of these regional trends suggests that the warming and acidification treatments employed dictated calcification responses, rather than collection region. Results from this meta-analysis are constrained by the very few studies that have been conducted within the Caribbean to assess ocean acidification and warming and the large variation in experimental procedure among studies. This meta-analysis reveals existing gaps in our understanding of how corals will likely respond to projected acidification and warming and highlights ways to improve comparability among experimental studies conducted on corals within the same region to better predict coral calcification response under global change.
Highlights
Reef-building corals provide the three-dimensional framework for tropical coral reef ecosystems across the globe, supporting many important ecological and economic goods and services (Costanza et al, 2014)
Experimental studies conducted in the Caribbean Sea were identified using Google Scholar with the following search terms: “Caribbean coral,” “ocean acidification,” “ocean warming,” “experiment,” “manipulation,” “control,” and “calcification.” Studies derived from the search were examined, and those that presented all of the following information were included in the meta-analysis: coral species, location of specimen collection, control and experimental temperature, and/or control and experimental pCO2 values, method of experimental manipulation, duration of exposure to treatment conditions, and calcification rate
11 studies met the standards of this meta-analysis, including the responses of 13 Caribbean coral species collected from five different countries across the Greater Caribbean Sea (Figure 1; Table S1)
Summary
Reef-building corals provide the three-dimensional framework for tropical coral reef ecosystems across the globe, supporting many important ecological and economic goods and services (Costanza et al, 2014). The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has projected that sea surface temperatures in the Caribbean region could rise between 0.6 and 3.0◦C by the end of the twenty-first century (ocean warming), and atmospheric pCO2 will surpass 600 μatm, causing surface ocean pH to decrease by 0.1–0.3 pH units (ocean acidification) (IPCC, 2014). These projections pose significant threats to reef-building corals throughout the Caribbean, causing mass mortality events, reducing recruitment, deteriorating key physiological processes, and lowering coral calcification rates (Jokiel and Coles, 1977; Grottoli et al, 2006; Davies et al, 2016; Okazaki et al, 2017). Understanding the variability in coral responses depicted in previous studies under projected ocean acidification and warming will improve our ability to predict how coral reef ecosystems will be impacted under global change stressors
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