Abstract
What will coral reefs look like in a future with rising sea surface temperature and declining water quality? Marine lakes - islands of seawater – are our marine time machines. These remote lakes currently provide natural states of predicted environmental scenarios, and allow glimpses into past biodiversity dynamics with dated sediment cores. Shifts in coral reef biodiversity could lead to major transitions in food webs which will have detrimental effects on fisheries, coastal protection and other ecosystem services. Understanding how species communities arise through time is key if we want to predict the trajectories of coral reefs. Yet much research to date has focused on ecological responses of individual species to rising temperature over short time scales, while historic change and adaptive potential of whole communities has remained underexplored. Furthermore, two important players are rapidly emerging on coral reefs: benthic cyanobacterial mats (BCMs) and sponges. BCMs and sponges have, however, been largely overlooked in recent prominent publications on modelled responses of coral reefs to climate change. By comparing marine lakes in Indonesia of similar ages, sizes and with high organic matter loads, but differing in temperature regimes (30-37oC), I aim to: A) Characterize responses of tropical marine species communities to environmental change; B) Develop improved insights on interactions among major groups of coral reef species; C) Model trajectories of change in species communities under various projections of future environmental settings. I will integrate field-observations of natural patterns with experiments both in aquaria and in situ in marine lakes and across openwater reefs exposed to different levels of human-induced organic matter. Using analyses of genomics, images, stable isotopes, water-quality, and paleontology, I will obtain crucial data to develop a dynamic model to identify the main feedbacks and interactions that can determine the trajectories of future coral reefs.
Netherlands