Suitable Environmental Ranges for Potential Coral Reef Habitats in the Tropical Ocean

Coral reefs are found within a limited range of environmental conditions or tolerance limits. Estimating these limits is a critical prerequisite for understanding the impacts of climate change on the biogeography of coral reefs. Here we used the diagnostic model ReefHab to determine the current envi...

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Main Authors:	Guan, Yi, Hohn, Sönke, Merico, Agostino
Format:	Online
Language:	English
Published:	Public Library of Science 2015
Online Access:	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4452591/

id	pubmed-4452591
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	pubmed-44525912015-06-09 Suitable Environmental Ranges for Potential Coral Reef Habitats in the Tropical Ocean Guan, Yi Hohn, Sönke Merico, Agostino Research Article Coral reefs are found within a limited range of environmental conditions or tolerance limits. Estimating these limits is a critical prerequisite for understanding the impacts of climate change on the biogeography of coral reefs. Here we used the diagnostic model ReefHab to determine the current environmental tolerance limits for coral reefs and the global distribution of potential coral reef habitats as a function of six factors: temperature, salinity, nitrate, phosphate, aragonite saturation state, and light. To determine these tolerance limits, we extracted maximum and minimum values of all environmental variables in corresponding locations where coral reefs are present. We found that the global, annually averaged tolerance limits for coral reefs are 21.7—29.6 °C for temperature, 28.7—40.4 psu for salinity, 4.51 μmol L-1 for nitrate, 0.63 μmol L-1 for phosphate, and 2.82 for aragonite saturation state. The averaged minimum light intensity in coral reefs is 450 μmol photons m-2 s-1. The global area of potential reef habitats calculated by the model is 330.5 × 103 km2. Compared with previous studies, the tolerance limits for temperature, salinity, and nutrients have not changed much, whereas the minimum value of aragonite saturation in coral reef waters has decreased from 3.28 to 2.82. The potential reef habitat area calculated with ReefHab is about 121×103 km2 larger than the area estimated from the charted reefs, suggesting that the growth potential of coral reefs is higher than currently observed. Public Library of Science 2015-06-01 /pmc/articles/PMC4452591/ /pubmed/26030287 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0128831 Text en © 2015 Guan et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
repository_type	Open Access Journal
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	US National Center for Biotechnology Information
building	NCBI PubMed
collection	Online Access
language	English
format	Online
author	Guan, Yi Hohn, Sönke Merico, Agostino
spellingShingle	Guan, Yi Hohn, Sönke Merico, Agostino Suitable Environmental Ranges for Potential Coral Reef Habitats in the Tropical Ocean
author_facet	Guan, Yi Hohn, Sönke Merico, Agostino
author_sort	Guan, Yi
title	Suitable Environmental Ranges for Potential Coral Reef Habitats in the Tropical Ocean
title_short	Suitable Environmental Ranges for Potential Coral Reef Habitats in the Tropical Ocean
title_full	Suitable Environmental Ranges for Potential Coral Reef Habitats in the Tropical Ocean
title_fullStr	Suitable Environmental Ranges for Potential Coral Reef Habitats in the Tropical Ocean
title_full_unstemmed	Suitable Environmental Ranges for Potential Coral Reef Habitats in the Tropical Ocean
title_sort	suitable environmental ranges for potential coral reef habitats in the tropical ocean
description	Coral reefs are found within a limited range of environmental conditions or tolerance limits. Estimating these limits is a critical prerequisite for understanding the impacts of climate change on the biogeography of coral reefs. Here we used the diagnostic model ReefHab to determine the current environmental tolerance limits for coral reefs and the global distribution of potential coral reef habitats as a function of six factors: temperature, salinity, nitrate, phosphate, aragonite saturation state, and light. To determine these tolerance limits, we extracted maximum and minimum values of all environmental variables in corresponding locations where coral reefs are present. We found that the global, annually averaged tolerance limits for coral reefs are 21.7—29.6 °C for temperature, 28.7—40.4 psu for salinity, 4.51 μmol L-1 for nitrate, 0.63 μmol L-1 for phosphate, and 2.82 for aragonite saturation state. The averaged minimum light intensity in coral reefs is 450 μmol photons m-2 s-1. The global area of potential reef habitats calculated by the model is 330.5 × 103 km2. Compared with previous studies, the tolerance limits for temperature, salinity, and nutrients have not changed much, whereas the minimum value of aragonite saturation in coral reef waters has decreased from 3.28 to 2.82. The potential reef habitat area calculated with ReefHab is about 121×103 km2 larger than the area estimated from the charted reefs, suggesting that the growth potential of coral reefs is higher than currently observed.
publisher	Public Library of Science
publishDate	2015
url	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4452591/
_version_	1613230770600542208

Suitable Environmental Ranges for Potential Coral Reef Habitats in the Tropical Ocean

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