Reef on the edge: resilience failure of marginal patch coral reefs in Eastern Arabian Sea under recurrent coral bleaching, coral diseases, and local stressors.

Abstract

Marked by strong El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) effects during 2014-2016, global coral reefs underwent mass bleaching. Here, we conducted a comprehensive (2014-2019) study, coinciding with the 2014-16 ENSO, to investigate the response and resilience potential of marginal coral communities to the combined impact of recurrent thermal anomalies and multiple anthropogenic stressors before, during, and after the mass bleaching episodes. Our result unveiled that thermal-stress-driven back-to-back annual coral bleaching episodes caused coral mortality and significantly decimated coral cover, primarily in 2015 and 2016. Subsequent benthic regime shifts toward macroalgal and algal turf colonization, followed by an increase in coral disease prevalence and recruitment failure wasobserved after the recurrent bleaching episodes. Algal cover increased from 21% in 2014 to 52.90% in 2019, and a subsequent increase in coral disease occurrence was observed from 16% in 2015 to 29% in 2019. The cascading negative effect of multiple stressors magnified coral loss and decreased the coral cover significantly from 45% in 2014 to 20% in 2019. The corals in the intensive recreational diving activity sites showed higher disease prevalence, concurring with high mechanical coral damage. The present study demonstrates that consecutive thermal bleaching episodes combined with local stressors can cause declines in coral cover and promote an undesirable regime shift to algal dominance in marginal coral reef habitats within a short duration. These results are of particular interest given that marginal reefs were traditionally perceived as resilient reef habitats due to their higher survival threshold to environmental changes. The present study indicates that mitigation of local stressors by effective management strategies, in conjunction with globally coordinated efforts to ameliorate climate change, can protect these unique coral reefs.