Reef refugia in the aftermath of past episodes of global warming

Dimitrijevic D, Santodomingo N, Kießling W (2024)


Publication Language: English

Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2024

Journal

Book Volume: 43

Pages Range: 1431–1442

DOI: 10.1007/s00338-024-02548-y

Open Access Link: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00338-024-02548-y

Abstract

In the face of rising global temperatures, coral reefs experience coral mass bleaching and mortality. Subtropical and mesophotic environments may represent refugia for reef corals under climate change, where they can survive and eventually recolonize degraded areas. Using a comprehensive database of fossil reefs, we empirically assess the efficacy of subtropical, deeper, and turbid mesophotic environments to restore coral reefs after past global warming events. We focus on tropical coral reefs over the last 275 million years and four rapid climate warming events, which coincided with global reef crises in the geological record. In the aftermath of such hyperthermal events, we observed an increase in the proportions of reefs occurring in deeper (blue) mesophotic environments. Additionally, we found a trend of reef distributions and coral shifting towards higher latitudes. The number of coral occurrences in turbid (brown mesophotic) environments also increased after hyperthermal events. Our results suggest that subtropical, blue, and brown mesophotic environments may have served as immediate refugia for shallow-water coral species escaping warming seawater. While the patterns of reef range shifts and the establishment of blue and brown mesophotic refugia following ancient hyperthermal events provide some hope for coral reefs under current climate change, re-establishement of background reef conditions took most times millions of years.

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How to cite

APA:

Dimitrijevic, D., Santodomingo, N., & Kießling, W. (2024). Reef refugia in the aftermath of past episodes of global warming. Coral Reefs, 43, 1431–1442. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00338-024-02548-y

MLA:

Dimitrijevic, Danijela, Nadia Santodomingo, and Wolfgang Kießling. "Reef refugia in the aftermath of past episodes of global warming." Coral Reefs 43 (2024): 1431–1442.

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