Spatial and environmental drivers of biodiversity, ecology and biogeography of coral communities in SW of the Arabian/Persian Gulf
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Biodiversity, Biogeography, Conservation Biology, Ecology, Marine Biology
- Keywords
- Beta-diversity, Spatial gradient, Environmental and anthropogenic pressures, Coral bleaching
- Copyright
- © 2018 Bouwmeester et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2018. Spatial and environmental drivers of biodiversity, ecology and biogeography of coral communities in SW of the Arabian/Persian Gulf. PeerJ Preprints 6:e26671v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.26671v1
Abstract
Arabian Gulf coral communities are particularly known for their utmost tolerance and adaptation to region’s extreme environmental conditions. However, stress through increasing sea temperatures, salinities, sustained coastal development, etc., has resulted in shifts in reef communities across the region in recent years. We conducted a comprehensive assessment of the status of coral communities at 15 reef sites, NW Arabian Gulf, focusing on the abundance of living coral cover and species biodiversity using photoquadrat surveys; we also investigate potential spatial and environmental drivers of changes in coral communities. We show a strong north-to-south gradient of declining live coral cover (38% to 13%) and species richness (28 to 7 species), with an additional reduction of species richness in coastal areas (2 species). Recent surveys in late summer 2017 revealed 100% bleaching in inshore coral communities and occasionally, the complete loss of coral cover resulting in a shift to a non-coral ecosystem composed of mostly rubble and turf-algae. Species turnover (Beta-diversity) and canonical correspondence analyses determined that environmental factors such as depth, salinity and sea surface temperatures play a significant role in driving these spatial patterns of coral biodiversity and biogeography and in predicting their shift as function of future regional climate scenarios.
Author Comment
This is an abstract which has been accepted for the WCMB