Palaeoecological records of coral community development on a turbid, nearshore reef complex: baselines for assessing ecological change.

ABSTRACT: Understanding past coral community development and reef growth is crucial for placing contemporary ecological and environmental change within appropriate reef-building timescales. On Australia's Great Barrier Reef (GBR), coral reefs situated within coastal inner-shelf zones are a particular priority. This is due to their close proximity to river point sources, and therefore susceptibility to reduced water quality discharged from coastal catchments, many of which have been modified following European settlement (ca. 1850 AD). However, the extent of water-quality decline and its impacts on the GBR's inner-shelf reefs remain contentious. In this study, palaeoecological coral assemblage records were developed for five proximal coral reefs situated within a nearshore turbid-zone reef complex on

SUBMITTER: Johnson JA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6979561 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature