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- Title
Managing resilience to reverse phase shifts in coral reefs.
- Authors
Graham, Nicholas AJ; Bellwood, David R; Cinner, Joshua E; Hughes, Terry P; Norström, Albert V; Nyström, Magnus
- Abstract
Both coral-dominated and degraded reef ecosystems can be resistant to change. Typically, research and manage-ment have focused on maintaining coral dominance and avoiding phase shifts to other species compositions, rather than on weakening the resilience of already degraded reefs to re-establish coral dominance. Reversing degraded coral-reef states will involve reducing local chronic drivers like fishing pressure and poor water quality. Reversals will also require management of key ecological processes - such as those performed by different func-tional groups of marine herbivores - that both weaken the resilience of the degraded state and strengthen the coral-dominated state. If detrimental human impacts are reduced and key ecological processes are enhanced, pulse disturbances, such as extreme weather events, and ecological variability may provide opportunities for a return to a coral-dominated state. Critically, achieving these outcomes will necessitate a diverse range of inte-grated approaches to alter human interactions with reef ecosystems.
- Subjects
ECOLOGICAL resilience; CORAL reef environmental conditions; HERBIVORES; WATER quality; ECOSYSTEM management; PRECIPITATION variability
- Publication
Frontiers in Ecology & the Environment, 2013, Vol 11, Issue 10, p541
- ISSN
1540-9295
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1890/120305