title: Remote coral reefs can sustain high growth potential and may match future sea-level trends.
abstract: Climate-induced disturbances are contributing to rapid, global-scale changes in coral reef ecology. As a consequence, reef carbonate budgets are declining, threatening reef growth potential and thus capacity to track rising sea-levels. Whether disturbed reefs can recover their growth potential and how rapidly, are thus critical research questions. Here we address these questions by measuring the carbonate budgets of 28 reefs across the Chagos Archipelago (Indian Ocean) which, while geographically remote and largely isolated from compounding human impacts, experienced severe (>90%) coral mortality during the 1998 warming event. Coral communities on most reefs recovered rapidly and we show that carbonate budgets in 2015 average +3.7 G (G = kg CaCO3 m(-2) yr(-1)). Most significantly the production rates on Acropora-dominated reefs, the corals most severely impacted in 1998, averaged +8.4 G by 2015, comparable with estimates under pre-human (Holocene) disturbance conditions. These positive budgets are reflected in high reef growth rates (4.2 mm yr(-1)) on Acropora-dominated reefs, demonstrating that carbonate budgets on these remote reefs have recovered rapidly from major climate-driven disturbances. Critically, these reefs retain the capacity to grow at rates exceeding measured regional mid-late Holocene and 20th century sea-level rise, and close to IPCC sea-level rise projections through to 2100.
authors.affiliation: Geography, College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK.
authors.forename: Chris T
authors.initials: CT
authors.lastname: Perry
authors.affiliation: Geography, College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK.
authors.forename: Gary N
authors.initials: GN
authors.lastname: Murphy
authors.affiliation: Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YQ, UK.|ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University, Townsville, QLD 4811, Australia.
authors.forename: Nicholas A J
authors.initials: NA
authors.lastname: Graham
authors.affiliation: Department of Parks and Wildlife, Kensington, Perth, Western Australia 6151, Australia.|School of Plant Biology, Oceans Institute, University of Western Australia, Crawley, Western Australia 6009, Australia.
authors.forename: Shaun K
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Wilson
authors.affiliation: Geography, College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK.
authors.forename: Fraser A
authors.initials: FA
authors.lastname: Januchowski-Hartley
authors.affiliation: Geography, College of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK.
authors.forename: Holly K
authors.initials: HK
authors.lastname: East
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D037421:Anthozoa; D057894:Coral Reefs; D057232:Global Warming; D006801:Humans; D019156:Indian Ocean; D008954:Models, Biological