Stories told by corals, algae, and sea-urchins in a Mesoamerican coral reef: degradation trumps succession.

ABSTRACT: Understanding the mechanisms that allow the permanence of coral reefs and the constancy of their characteristics is necessary to alleviate the effects of chronic environmental changes. After a disturbance, healthy coral reefs display trajectories that allow regaining coral cover and the establishment of framework building corals. Through a comparative approach, in a patch reef partially affected by a ship grounding, we analyzed the successional trajectories in affected and unaffected sectors. Fleshy algae (which do not promote the recruitment of corals) dominated the reef surface irrespective of the impact of the ship grounding incident. Acropora species had near-zero contributions to community structure, whereas non-framework building corals like Porites sp. had a slightly h

SUBMITTER: Victoria-Salazar I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9851048 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature