Monitoring Ecological Impacts of Ocean Acidification on Coral Reefs Rusty Brainard1, C Young2, M Timmers2, R Feely3, S Alin3, A Sutton3, A Cohen4, T DeCarlo4, N Price5, J Smith5, T Martz5, A Andersson5, N Knowlton6, C Meyer6, D Manzello7, I Inochs7, G Paulay8, D Gledhill9, L Jewitt9, R Toonen10, F Rohwer11, S Khokiattiwong12, A Chavanich13, W Zhu14, J Jompa15, many others

1 NOAA Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center, Honolulu 2 Joint Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research, Honolulu

3 NOAA Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, Seattle 4 Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, Woods Hole

5 Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Univ. California San Diego 6 National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington

7 NOAA Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory, Miami 8 Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainsville

9 NOAA Ocean Acidification Program, Silver Spring 10 UH-Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, Kaneohe

11 San Diego State University, San Diego 12 Phuket Marine Biological Lab, Phuket,Thailand

13 Chulalongkorn Univ.Thailand 14 UNESCO IOC WESTPAC, Bangkok, Thailand

15 Hassanuddin Univ. Makassar, Indonesia

SIDS OA Workshop, Apia, Samoa, 28-29 Aug. 2014

2

Why Should We Care? Coral reefs

provide ecosystem services (food security, livelihoods, coastal protection, etc.) to many 100s of millions of people in the tropics worldwide, especially SIDS countries!

Coral reefs are the most biologically diverse marine ecosystems

People Men and Women, Young and Old, Poor and Rich! Coral reef & coastal ecosystems provide many benefits for people!

Major

Gap

Coral calcification • 1765 Adequate • 2000 Marginal • 2100 Low

Problem: Ocean acidification is one of the largest threats to marine ecosystems

• Changes ocean chemistry • pH decreases • Reduction in the amount of

carbonate present in seawater

• Greater difficultly for marine organisms to deposit calcium carbonate; shells, skeletons, limestone

• May lead to large shifts in marine communities

• Why?

Ocean Acidification is not just a theory, it’s happening

now

Coral Reef Ecosystems

Reef-building corals & calcareous algae provide the foundational 3-dimensional habitat structures supporting this rich biodiversity

Coral reefs are declining worldwide due to multiple stressors, including warming, overfishing, pollution, disease, ocean acidification.

Caribbean: ~80% decline in cover over 30 years

From Gardner et al. (2003)

Great Barrier Reef – 50% decline in coral cover over the past 26 yrs.

De’ath et al. (2012)

Calcification/Recruitment Experiments/models have shown corals and reef-building crustose coralline algae are highly vulnerable to OA:

Reduced calcification/growth Reduced settlement/recruitment

From Langdon & Atkinson. (2005)

From Ricke, Orr, Schneider & Caldeira (2013)

Will this happen in nature? Or,, does nature provide more resilience? need long-term global observations

Pre-industrial

Now

550 ppm

900 ppm

CENOZOIC MESOZOIC PALEOZOIC PRECAMBRIAN

Age (Ma)

From Signor (1990)

Number ofGenera

Biodiversity Loss

65 200 251 360 444

Era

Coral Reef Gap

Extinction rates have already increased ~100X Predicted to increase >100X over next century

Lost Resilience? lost function? lost ecosystem services?

We are now in the 6th Mass Extinction Event!

Who will be impacted?: Not all species

respond the same to reduced seawater pH

• Species that are fleshy and CO2 limited may thrive

• Species that currently live in highly variable environments may be best adapted

• Species that calcify, are sessile, and are taxonomically ‘simple’ may not survive

Coral loss

• 10 % of coral reef fishes are coral dependent, so directly

affected by coral loss

• But, 75% of fish species declined following coral decline

• 50% of fish species declined by >50%

-2

-1

0

1

2

3

Δ f

ish

/ Δ

coral

cover

Coral-dwelling species Corallivores Herbivores

Wilson et al. 2006 Global Change Biology 12, 2220-2234 Slide courtesy Phil Munday

Pro

port

ional change

Time after mass bleaching (years)

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

0.5

0

-0.5

-1

Coral reef fishes

Macroalgae

Coral cover

Habitat

complexity

Slide courtesy Phil Munday

0-4 nm district managed 4-12 province managed 12-200 nation managed

Example: Ecosystem-Based Management (EBM) or EAFM

EAFM and EBM need to take into account ocean acidification (and climate change) because it will effect all

aspects of the marine ecosytems.

Ve

rtic

al In

tegr

atio

n

Rusty Brainard - NOAA

Monitoring Ecological Impacts of OA Pacific RAMP

Kimbe Bay,

PNG

Indonesia

Philippines

Establishing baseline observations to monitor long-term changes of:

Carbonate chemistry DIC, TA, S pH, Ω

Calcification rates (Coring, CAUs)

Bioerosion rates (BMUs)

Crytobiota diversity (ARMS)

Benthic & Fish diversity & abundance

Microbial diversity (environmental water sampling)

Benthic rugosity

Spatially distributed, consistent, repeatable, long-term observations of key indicators to robustly document changes in natural coral reefs attributable to OA

Want ‘Keeling Curve’ of: 1. Carbonate chemistry: 2. Key ecological indicators:

Pacific Reef Assessment & Monitoring Program (Pacific RAMP)

Philippines

Indonesia

Timor Leste

Papua New Guinea

Level 3 – MApCO2/Other

Level 2 – Partial

Level 1 – Partial

Broad spatial coverage (wide-but-thin) stratified random design

Observing across gradients

of environmental

conditions, biodiversity,

human impacts

2013

2014

2015

pCO2 Ωarag

Island-scale Survey Design

Upstream

DIC/TA

sampling

Sampling for DIC, TA, T, S, Chl a, nutrients, microbes.

Surface & Reef

Onshore-offshore

3-year sampling

Derive pH, Ω, NEC, NEP

Site-scale Sampling Design

Level 2 10 m x 5 m Photo Mosaic

Mean Reef pH

Chip Young et al. (in prep)

More

Acidic

More

Acidic

Less

Acidic

Less

Acidic

Less

Acidic

Equatorial &

Topographic

Upwelling

Subtropical

Front

from (GLODAP)

Coral Calcification Rates

With Anne Cohen’s Lab WHOI

Palmyra

Kingman Jarvis

GBR Rose

Red Sea Palau

Palau

Palau

Panama

Jarvis

Kingman Palmyra

Calcification rates of massive reef-building corals not a function only of saturation state.

Also a function of food supply provided by upwelling.

Coral Bioerosion is Higher at Low Saturation State & High Nutrients

2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.50

24

68

10

12

WAragonite

Bio

ero

sio

n %

Vo

lum

e

2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.50

24

68

10

12

WAragonite

Bio

ero

sio

n %

Vo

lum

e

High−Nutrient Reefs

Low−Nutrient Reefs

Individual cores

Reef means

DeCarlo et al. (in review) Nature Climate Change surface slab 3D

ΩAragonite

A core of skeleton is removed from a live coral (above) and CT scanned (below)

Cohen Lab, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Calcification Accretion Units (CAUs) Bioerosion Monitoring Units (BMUs)

Habitat

Forereef Lagoon

Leeward

Windward

*

b

Archipelago

AM SAM PRIA

Ne

t c

alc

ific

ati

on

(g

cm

-2 y

r-1

)

0.00

0.05

0.10

0.15

0.20

Fore Reef

Lagoon

a

*

*

American Samoa (AM SAM)

Rose Tutuila Tau Ofu Swains Jarvis Baker Howland Palmyra Kingman

Leeward

Windward

c

Pacific Remote Island Areas (PRIAs) Topography

Atoll High island

*

d

Reef Habitat Type

Forereef Lagoon

Kingman

Rose

e

*

*

**

*

Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures (ARMS) are a systematic tool to assess and monitor changes in indices of biodiversity. On-going development of both taxonomic and genetic analytical approaches to robustly detect biodiversity shifts.

Biodiversity Shifts: ARMS

Conclusions

Urge SIDS countries to collaborate and join GOA-ON to obtain standardized observations!

Ocean Acidification will increasingly impact marine ecosystems, coral reefs, fisheries, coastal protection & communities in the SIDS countries!

Need simple, consistent/systematic, cost-effective time series observations of both physical/chemical & key ecological parameters of coastal & coral reef ecosystems to inform policy & resource management decisions.

Rusty.Brainard@noaa.gov 808-725-5419