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Increased Coral and Fish
Survival on Mineral Accretion
ABSTRACTS Thomas J. Goreau, Wolf Hilbertz, & A. Azeez A. Hakeem Electrolytic Mineral Accretion (MA) reefs were compared with adjacent natural coral reefs from repeated video records in the Maldives before, during, and after the 1998 bleaching event. Massive corals on MA had higher survival (~80%) than those on natural reef (~1-5%), but almost all branching Acropora and Pocillopora died in both habitats, indicating that electro-protection was insufficient to overcome thermal stress to the most affected species. MA reefs now have much higher live coral cover, coral growth rates, and coral recruitment than natural reefs. MA reefs have higher proportions of normal reef fish (e.g. butterflyfish, anthias, oriental sweetlips, triggerfish, groupers, and moray eels) than natural reefs (now dominated by algae-eating parrotfish, surgeonfish, rabbitfish, and damselfish), making them an oasis of coral reef biodiversity. However they have also attracted surviving coral-eating Drupella and Acanthaster from surrounding reefs with high coral mortality, requiring control measures. Electro-protection of coral reefs may become the only way to maintain in-situ coral reef biodiversity and ecological function if global warming continues. |
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