Biology subjects

Colton, M. A.

Publications and source records attributed to Colton, M. A..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2024

Marine spatial planning to enhance coral adaptive potential

Ocean warming interacts with local stressors to negatively affect coral reefs. The adaptive capacity of reefs to survive these stressors is driven by ecological and evolutionary processes occurring at multiple spatial scales. Marine protected area (MPA) networks are one solution that can address both local and regional threats, yet the impacts of MPA network design on adaptive processes remains unclear. In this paper, we used an eco-evolutionary model to simulate hypothetical MPA configurations in the Caribbean, Southwest Pacific and Coral Triangle under projected warming. We found that protecting thermal refugia (i.e., cooler reefs) largely benefited corals inside the refugia while other reefs declined. In contrast, protecting a diverse habitat portfolio led to increased coral cover both inside and outside of the MPA network. We then quantified the thermal habitat and connectivity representations of reefs both inside and outside existing MPA networks across each region. Most strikingly, reefs in current MPA networks in the Southwest Pacific and Coral Triangle are approximately 2 {degrees}C cooler than reefs outside the MPA networks, while the Caribbeans MPA network is approximately 1 {degrees}C warmer than reefs outside the network, based on mean temperatures from 2008-2018. These results suggest that the Caribbean MPA network is poised to protect sources of warm-adapted larvae but not destinations, and the opposite is true of the Southwest Pacific and Coral Triangle. Our results suggest that 1) by protecting sites with particular temperature and connectivity characteristics, marine spatial planning may alter eco-evolutionary processes to enhance or inhibit the adaptive capacity of a reef network and 2) the distribution, extent, and effectiveness of local interventions have the potential to affect regional distributions of coral cover beyond what would be expected from local benefits alone, due to the potentially wide-reaching effects of larval dispersal and gene flow.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2021

Evolution and connectivity influence the persistence and recovery of coral reefs under climate change in the Caribbean, Southwest Pacific, and Coral Triangle

Corals are experiencing unprecedented decline from climate change-induced mass bleaching events. Dispersal not only contributes to coral reef persistence through demographic rescue but can also hinder or facilitate evolutionary adaptation. Locations of reefs that are likely to survive future warming therefore remain largely unknown, particularly within the context of both ecological and evolutionary processes across complex seascapes that differ in temperature range, strength of connectivity, network size, and other characteristics. Here, we used eco-evolutionary simulations to examine coral adaptation to warming across reef networks in the Caribbean, the Southwest Pacific, and the Coral Triangle. We assessed the factors associated with coral persistence in multiple reef systems to understand which results are general and which are sensitive to particular geographic contexts. We found that evolution can be critical in preventing extinction and facilitating the long-term recovery of coral communities in all regions. Furthermore, the strength of immigration to a reef (destination strength) and current sea surface temperature robustly predicted reef persistence across all reef networks and across temperature projections. However, we found higher initial coral cover, slower recovery, and more evolutionary lag in the Coral Triangle, which has a greater number of reefs and more larval settlement than the other regions. We also found the lowest projected future coral cover in the Caribbean. These findings suggest that coral reef persistence depends on ecology, evolution, and habitat network characteristics, and that, under an emissions stabilization scenario (RCP 4.5), recovery may be possible over multiple centuries.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2020

Geometric Analysis of Regime Shifts in Coral Reef Communities

Coral reefs are among the many communities believed to exhibit regime shifts between alternative stable states, single-species dominance, and coexistence. Proposed drivers of regime shifts include changes in grazing, spatial clustering, and ocean temperature. Here we distill the dynamic regimes of coral-macroalgal interaction into a three-dimensional geometry, akin to thermodynamic phase diagrams of state transitions, to facilitate analysis. Specific regime-shifting forces can be understood as bifurcation vectors through the cubic regime geometry. This geometric perspective allows us to understand multiple forces simultaneously in terms of the stability and persistence of interacting species. For example, in a coral-macroalgae community, grazing on macroalgae can lead to alternative stable states when there is no spatial clustering (e.g., high habitat connectivity). However, with spatial clustering, grazing can lead to coexistence because of elevated local intraspecific competition. The geometrical analysis of regime shifts is applicable to any two-species communities and can help conservation efforts navigate complexity and abrupt changes.

ecology↗