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Description:
Project Manager:
Derek Manzello
Project Years:
2015
Project Summary:
NCRMP/OAP provides unprecedented sustained and long-term measurement of 1) the spatial and temporal progression of OA, as well as, 2) the ecosystem impact of OA on US coral reefs. NCRMP/OAP will provide for the physical monitoring of carbonate chemistry, as well as the NCRMP tier 2 measurements of coral growth and erosion at all class III climate monitoring sites. The measurements of Net Ecosystem Calcification (NEC) and Net Community Productivity (NCP) are the core suite of measurements that will NOT be covered by the NCRMP/OAP investment to monitor the ecosystem impact of OA on coral reefs. Although relegated to tier 3 by the fiscal constraints of NCRMP, NEC and NCP are crucial to any investigation into the effects of OA on coral reefs as decided by CROAMP. As a result, it is imperative that measurements of NEC and NCP continue to be made on a seasonal basis, and these measurements, which have made up the core activities of the AOAT process studies to-date, are proposed herein as the core, next generation AOAT.
Expected Outcome:
A core goal of CRCP is to identify, understand, and communicate vulnerability of U.S. coral reef ecosystems, ecosystem services, and dependent human communities to climate change and ocean acidification. Long-term enhanced strategic management of coral reef ecosystems demands an improved and applied understanding of the impacts of OA on coral reef ecosystems. This understanding is necessary to attribute past effects of OA to global declines in coral reef health over the past several decades, to discern the present-day OA stress currently affecting coral reef communities, and to forecast the potential future impact of continued OA in concert with other global and local threats. Considerable knowledge gaps remain regarding the impact of OA on coral reef ecosystems and, without achieving an applied understanding of the effects of OA, little guidance can be afforded to coral reef management in the near-term. The effects of climate-scale processes on coral reef ecosystems appear spatially variable at multiple scales. This suggests a need for future conservation and management efforts to identify and protect regional refugia, which should be integrated into existing management frameworks and combined with policies to improve system-wide resilience to climate variation and change. These refugia need to be identified before they can be preserved and what constitutes a refugia in terms of OA (e.g. chemical and community setting) must first be defined based on the research efforts like those advanced at the AOAT.
Project Locations:
Project Category:
Climate Change
Project Type:
Closed
Project Status:
Funding Ended
Associated Products:
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