developed a new modeling approach, for evaluating coral reef persistence under climate change scenarios. Aiming to improve coral restoration efforts, this new user-friendly framework has been created as a helpful tool for coral reef scientists and managers to address the increasing vulnerability of these vital ecosystems.NOAA
A carbonate budget is a form of quantitative measure of the net carbonate production in a given reef environment. Carbonate production is a vital tool that corals possess, as it essentially builds their internal skeleton, allowing corals to build entire reefs. Each coral polyp, which is an invertebrate organism, secretes this skeleton forming material, known as calcium carbonate.
These figures depict the relationship between sea surface temperature and aragonite saturation rate, under two different emission scenarios. Saturation rate is the measure of calcium carbonate which corals need to form their skeletons. The blue line represents a highly ambitious but plausible scenario where emissions are reduced, often referred to as the “middle of the road scenario”. The red line represents a high emissions scenario.
“We started this project because decision makers are limited by the lack of predictive tools used to assess regional responses under future climate change. To address these challenges, we’ve created a new user-friendly tool for the successful management of coral restoration initiatives.” — Dr. Alice Webb
This new framework will allow scientists and conservationists to evaluate reef persistence under scenarios of warming and ocean acidification, while exploring the outcomes of different restoration targets. It was first applied to Cheeca Rocks, an outlier reef in the Florida Keys in terms of high coral cover, carbonate production, and an abundance of the vulnerable mountainous star coral (