From polyps to pixels: understanding coral reef resilience to local and global change across scales

• Published in: Landscape ecology Vol. 38; no. 3; pp. 737 - 752
• Main Authors: Donovan, Mary K., Alves, Catherine, Burns, John, Drury, Crawford, Meier, Ouida W., Ritson-Williams, Raphael, Cunning, Ross, Dunn, Robert P., Goodbody-Gringley, Gretchen, Henderson, Leslie M., Knapp, Ingrid S. S., Levy, Joshua, Logan, Cheryl A., Mudge, Laura, Sullivan, Chris, Gates, Ruth D., Asner, Gregory P.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01-03-2023; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Best practice; Biological activity; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Coral reef ecosystems; Coral reefs; Ecology; Ecosystems; Environmental Management; Hyperspectral imaging; Landscape Ecology; Landscape/Regional and Urban Planning; Life Sciences; Nature Conservation; New technology; Perspective; Polyps (organisms); Remote sensing; Resilience; Strategic management; Strategic planning; Sustainable Development; Cross-scale; Scaling; Sustainability; Remote sensing
• ISSN: 0921-2973; 1572-9761
• DOI: 10.1007/s10980-022-01463-3

Context
Coral reef resilience is the product of multiple interacting processes that occur across various interacting scales. This complexity presents challenges for identifying solutions to the ongoing worldwide decline of coral reef ecosystems that are threatened by both local and global human stressors.
Objectives
We highlight how coral reef resilience is studied at spatial, temporal, and functional scales, and explore emerging technologies that are bringing new insights to our understanding of reef resilience. We then provide a framework for integrating insights across scales by using new and existing technological and analytical tools. We also discuss the implications of scale on both the ecological processes that lead to declines of reefs, and how we study those mechanisms.
Methods
To illustrate, we present a case study from Kāneʻohe Bay, Hawaiʻi, USA, linking remotely sensed hyperspectral imagery to within-colony symbiont communities that show differential responses to stress.
Results
In doing so, we transform the scale at which we can study coral resilience from a few individuals to entire ecosystems.
Conclusions
Together, these perspectives guide best practices for designing management solutions that scale from individuals to ecosystems by integrating multiple levels of biological organization from cellular processes to global patterns of coral degradation and resilience.