Mapping the susceptibility of reefs to rubble accumulation across the Great Barrier Reef.

ABSTRACT: Disturbance-induced rubble accumulations are described as "killing fields" on coral reefs as coral recruits suffer high post-settlement mortality, creating a bottleneck for reef recovery. The increasing frequency of coral bleaching events, that can generate rubble once coral dies, has heightened concerns that rubble beds will become more widespread and persistent. But we currently lack the tools to predict where rubble is most likely to accumulate. Here, we developed a modelling framework to identify areas that are likely to accumulate rubble on forereef slopes across the Great Barrier Reef. The algorithm uses new high-resolution bathymetric and geomorphic datasets from satellite remote sensing. We found that 47 km of reef slope (3% of the entire reef surveyed), primarily in the southern r

SUBMITTER: Leung SK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10824869 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature