Dixon, AM orcid.org/0000-0003-4297-0892, Forster, PM orcid.org/0000-0002-6078-0171 and Beger, M orcid.org/0000-0003-1363-3571 (2021) Coral conservation requires ecological climate‐change vulnerability assessments. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 19 (4). pp. 243-250. ISSN 1540-9295
Abstract
Climate‐driven changes to environmental conditions are driving severe declines of coral reef ecosystems. Current climate vulnerability estimates commonly focus on ocean warming and typically overlook ecological responses or use broad proxies to represent responses, leading to management decisions based on incomplete views of coral reef futures. We explore four underdeveloped aspects of climate vulnerability assessments and make the following recommendations: (1) use climate projections based on changes in global warming as future scenarios in place of the more common emissions scenarios; (2) include available high‐resolution projections for climate variables in addition to thermal stress; (3) combine projected climate stressors accounting for uncertainty in future outcomes; and (4) quantitatively assess historical and project future ecological sensitivity and adaptive capacity of corals to multiple stressors. We demonstrate how this framework can be used to reduce uncertainty in projected climate vulnerability and facilitate targeted investment in managing reefs most likely to endure climatic disturbances.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Authors/Creators: |
|
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2021 The Authors. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) |
Dates: |
|
Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Biological Sciences (Leeds) > School of Biology (Leeds) The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Earth and Environment (Leeds) > Inst for Climate & Atmos Science (ICAS) (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number EU - European Union 747102 EU - European Union 820829 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 17 Sep 2020 10:44 |
Last Modified: | 25 Jun 2023 22:25 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Ecological Society of America |
Identification Number: | 10.1002/fee.2312 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:165641 |