Coral distribution and bleaching vulnerability areas in Southwestern Atlantic under ocean warming.

ABSTRACT: Global climate change is a major threat to reefs by increasing the frequency and severity of coral bleaching events over time, reducing coral cover and diversity. Ocean warming may cause shifts in coral communities by increasing temperatures above coral's upper thermal limits in tropical regions, and by making extratropical regions (marginal reefs) more suitable and potential refugia. We used Bayesian models to project coral occurrence, cover and bleaching probabilities in Southwestern Atlantic and predicted how these probabilities will change under a high-emission scenario (RCP8.5). By overlapping these projections, we categorized areas that combine high probabilities of coral occurrence, cover and bleaching as vulnerability-hotspots. Current coral occurrence and cover probabilities were

SUBMITTER: Bleuel J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8233347 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature