Title
Coral responses to climate change exposure
Author(s)
McClanahan, Tim R
Published
2022
Publisher
Environmental Research Letters
Abstract
A brief historical narrative of coral responses to climate change exposures is followed by a review of evidence. I trace the history of investigations and summarize the findings from 112 multiple-site field studies that examined environmental exposure variables and coral bleaching and mortality response relationships. A total of 59 environmental variables in 6 topic areas were studied of which excess thermal exposure was the most common topic and variable. Investigations were broadly classified into two categories; those focused on either excess thermal stress thresholds (TM) or on continuous variables (VM). The TM investigations considered a total of 28 variables, but only 1.7 ± 1.3 (SD) variables per publication, and only 11% completed a variable selection process that competed variables for fit or parsimony. The 65 VM publications considered 59 variables, more variables per publication (4.1 ± 4.3), and 43% of the studies followed a variable selection procedure. TM investigations received more citation and were most frequently used to identify future climate change impacts and sanctuaries. VM investigations often report excess heat threshold variables as weak single predictors of coral bleaching and mortality. Coral responses to exposure favors mechanisms of causation that are additive and interactive; specifically, the interactions between chronic and acute stresses within the geographic and habitat contexts of local environmental and coral genetic histories. Some of the potentially most important variables for predicting coral responses to exposure have seldom been studied or modelled. The implication is that the future status and health of coral reefs will be better than predicted by TMs. Moreover, impacts and sanctuaries are expected to be patchy and influenced by space, time, genetics, and taxa heterogeneity that will reflect a mix of avoidance, resistance, and recovery processes and their associated sanctuary locations.
Keywords
bleaching skill; climate change; exposure; global models; sensitivity; vulnerability

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PUB32027