A survey of 97 coastal ecosystem experts revealed impacts of climate disturbance but also instances of resilience in all ecosystem types evaluated and at multiple locations worldwide
From the AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Climate-driven disturbances are having profound impacts on coastal ecosystems, with many crucial habitat-forming species in sharp decline. However, among these degraded biomes, examples of resilience are emerging. Writing in BioScience, Jennifer O’Leary, a California Sea Grant Marine Biologist based at Polytechnic State University, and her colleagues describe these recoveries and highlight the possible implications for ecosystem-sparing management.
Jennifer O’Leary
To gain insight into disturbed coastal habitats, the authors surveyed 97 marine experts about their observations of climate-induced perturbations, including extreme storms, temperature changes, and ocean acidification. Eighty percent of those who had witnessed climate extremes also identified evidence of habitat resistance or rapid recovery.
According to O’Leary and her colleagues, the survey results indicated that “bright spots of ecosystem resilience are surprisingly common across six major coastal marine ecosystems.” In some cases, resilience was marked by striking recoveries. In one bleaching event in Western Australia, up to 90% of live coral was lost as a result of severe bleaching. Despite reaching a low of 9% unbleached area, the healthy reef surface recovered to 44% within 12 years. According to the survey of experts, the factors enabling resiliency were varied, but areas of remnant tridimensional habitat and high connectivity were the most frequently cited contributors. Sound management practices were also considered important, particularly the control of additional human stressors.
The authors hope that by elucidating the causes of resilience, they can “uncover local conditions and processes that may allow ecosystems to maintain their structure and function and continue providing ecosystem services to humans.
” They argue that if marine protected areas “are spaced appropriately given the reproductive output and dispersal potential of species,” it may be possible to mitigate the damage caused by climate disturbance events. Nevertheless, O’Leary and her colleagues caution that local bright spots do “not contradict the overwhelming evidence that climatic impacts present a major stressor to coastal ecosystems,” although they do provide “optimism that we can indeed identify and manage for conditions that facilitate resilience to climatic stress.”
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What goes on in oceanic flora and fauna is far more damaged by overgrowth under static conditions. Better to have regular spates of devastation similar to forests and other land based ecosystems to maintain optimal averaged health. Idiots.
” remnant tridimensional habitat ” …..brought to us by those who live in the elite world of academia ….
er …those who don’t get out much ?
Where fish are given the right conditions to thrive, boy does it reap dividends , much like the coral at Bikini island- growing like a forest and in pristine condition or wildlife at Chernobyl.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn26375-fish-love-skyscraper-style-living-under-oil-platforms/
I keep reading of reemergence of coral. Is the supposed bad climate becoming good again! Rhetorical,
The article used the top 50 cited “experts,” another misuse of “Impact Factors.” If they had asked those of us in the bottom 50 they would have known about this a long time ago. The oyster coverage, which I know a bit about, is very poor, with the Texas paper cited not even directly examined, and the Beck crisis article has problems, some acknowledged, some not.
Another proof that CAGW is a thing of creationists. Only creationists could had thought that resilience to changing conditions didn’t matter.
While I don’t entirely agree with your statement, it IS worth pointing out that Greenie philosophy mirrors Christian genesis, painted over with day-glow green, complete with false prophets, expiated sin, pardoners, and the whole cast. Since the Progressive Left has killed God as a means of social control, they have to fill the gap of all that Catholic guilt with something… and they already had a template.
Snarfl gurgle muffle. Now that’s funny! And so true!
It took me years to realize and appreciate this, but the “Foundation” series written by arch-atheist Isaac Asimov is nothing but more than a reconstruction of the dilemma between God’s omniscience and the principle of Free Will. Consider: God is omniscient, but we have free will to act on our own; so how could He possibly know everything if at any instance, one of our decisions could change the flow of history?
Yet in the series, Asimov creates a God-figure, psychohistorian Hari Seldon, who devises a new mathematical system that allows him to predict the behavior and path of billions of Galactic Empire citizens as a whole, which granting each of them the agency to act on their own beliefs.
The plan is only interrupted when a mutant, unpredictable by even the super-math of psychohistory, arises to challenge Seldon’s Plan for the blueprint of the future Galactic Empire. However, the priesthood that Seldon established long ago against such a disruption rises to the occasion, and hijinks ensue.
I wonder if anyone ever asked him about that at a SF convention, ever?
“According to O’Leary and her colleagues, the survey results indicated that “bright spots of ecosystem resilience are surprisingly common across six major coastal marine ecosystems.” In some cases, resilience was marked by striking recoveries. In one bleaching event in Western Australia, up to 90% of live coral was lost as a result of severe bleaching. Despite reaching a low of 9% unbleached area, the healthy reef surface recovered to 44% within 12 years. According to the survey of experts, the factors enabling resiliency were varied, but areas of remnant tridimensional habitat and high connectivity were the most frequently cited contributors. Sound management practices were also considered important, particularly the control of additional human stressors.”
Ain’t that good news, man ain’t that news!
https://youtu.be/QPxNBVtboy8
Marine ecosystems will thrive under the right conditions.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn26375-fish-love-skyscraper-style-living-under-oil-platforms/
oops, thought my early comment had not gone through, under moderation and didn’t check.
Extreme storms? Stopped reading right there.