Coral ‘arks’: a triage model for marine resource management based on coral resilience

Dr Alison Jones and Dr Ray BerkelmansCentre for Environmental Management, Central

Queensland University, RockhamptonThe Australian Institute of Marine Science, Townsville

Marine Reserves

Marine reserves play an important part in helping to protect tropical reefs cope with climate change (Hannah, 2008; Mumby, 2007)

Marine reserves as management tools

• Many reserves in areas vulnerable to coral bleaching (McClanahan, 2008)

• Marine reserves protect fish stocks (Russ, 2008)

• Evidence that they have no positive effect on ecosystem response to large-scale disturbance (Graham, 2008)

• Will marine reserves protect corals from climate changes?

Corals are the cornerstones of marine ecosystems

Healthy reefs support greater marine life

Eroded reefs support less marine life

Coral have survived past climate-driven extinctions (Kiessling, 2007)

Mod

ern

cora

ls

1 2 3

So, how did they survive these extinctions….?

Species survival – the ark principle

Now, let’s get this right….only two of each

species please…

Marine refuges may act as coral ‘arks’

Marine systems can recover following catastrophic disturbance if small pockets of diverse corals

survive to re-populate surrounding reefs

Characterising ‘refugia’ – the Keppels

Deep and shallowStress tolerant zooxanthellae

High coral cover

High coral species diversity

High light

Cool temperature

The Triage Principle for management

‘The assignation of priority on the basis of where

resources are most likely to achieve

success’……Merriam Webster Dictionary

Reefs that won’t survive no matter what

Reefs that will survive in spite of intervention

Reefs that have a better chance of survival with intervention

Refuges: the key to Australia’s maritime security?

“Don’t you think they’d be better off in the water…?”

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank the volunteers too numerous to mention, the Australian Navy and AIMS for assistance with fieldwork

for this project. GIS data in this presentation was supplied by GeoScience Australia through the Australian Government,,

the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and the Fitzroy Basin Association. The ‘refugia’ project was the idea of Dr

Ray Berkelmans. Nick Floyd (Lowy Institute Fellow) had the idea of extending this to augment Australia’s Asia-Pacific

regional maritime security

References

• Graham, N. A. J., T. R. McClanahan, et al. (2008). "Climate Warming, Marine Protected Areas and the Ocean-Scale Integrity of Coral Reef Ecosystems." PLoS ONE 3 (8)

• Hannah, L. (2008). "Protected Areas and Climate Change." Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1134 (1): 201-212

• Maxmen, A. (2008). "Refuge for the resilient." Science News 173 (15): 238

• Russ, G. R., A. J. Cheal, et al.(2008). "Rapid increase in fish numbers follows creation of world's largest marine reserve network." Current Biology 18 (12): 514-515

• Mumby, P. J., A. R. Harborne, J. Williams, C. V. Kappel, D. R. Brumbaugh, F. Micheli, K. E. Holmes, C. P. Dahlgren, C. B. Paris and P. G. Blackwell (2007). "Trophic cascade facilitates coral recruitment in a marine reserve." PNAS 104 (20): 8362-8367