Coral 'arks': a triage model for marine resource management based on coral resilience to climatic events

1. Coral ‘arks’: a triage model
for marine resource
management based on coral
resilience
Dr Alison Jones and Dr Ray Berkelmans
Centre for Environmental Management, Central
Queensland University, Rockhampton
The Australian Institute of Marine Science, Townsville

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

3. 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?

4. Corals are the cornerstones of marine
ecosystems
Healthy reefs support
greater marine life
Eroded reefs support
less marine life

5. Coral have survived past climate-driven
extinctions (Kiessling, 2007)
Moderncorals
1 2 3
So, how did they survive these extinctions….?

6. Species survival – the ark principle
Now, let’s get this
right….only two of each
species please…

7. 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

8. Characterising ‘refugia’ – the Keppels
Deep and shallow
Stress tolerant zooxanthellae
High coral cover
High coral species diversity
High light
Cool temperature

9. 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

10. Refuges: the key to Australia’s maritime
security?

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

12. 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

13. 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