Evidence of Biological Self-Organization in Spatial Patterns of a Common Tropical Alga.

AbstractTropical reef communities contain spatial patterns at multiple scales, observable from microscope and satellite alike. Many of the smaller-scale patterns are generated physiologically (e.g., skeletal structures of corals at <1-m scale), while some of the larger patterns have been attributed to scale-dependent feedbacks (e.g., spur and groove reefs at 10-100-m scales). In describing the spatial patterning of reef benthic communities at landscape levels, we uncovered unique spatial patterning among living marine algae. Populations of the calcifying green alga Halimeda were observed to form a consistent polygonal pattern at a characteristic scale of 3-4 m. The pattern showed no clear evidence of having been formed through biologically created shifts in hydrodynamical conditions or related mechanisms. In considering the specifics of Halimeda growth patterns, a model of self-organization involving separation and patterned extension is proposed, a mechanism revealed in some geological pattern formation. This observation reinforces the diversity of pathways by which striking spatial patterns can occur in ecosystems.

Post-settlement demographics of reef building corals suggest prolonged recruitment bottlenecks.

For many organisms, early life stages experience significantly higher rates of mortality relative to adults. However, tracking early life stage individuals through time in natural settings is difficult, limiting our understanding of the duration of these 'mortality bottlenecks', and the time required for survivorship to match that of adults. Here, we track a cohort of juvenile corals (1-5 cm maximum diameter) from 12 taxa at a remote atoll in the Central Pacific from 2013 to 2017 and describe patterns of annual survivorship. Of the 537 juveniles initially detected, 219 (41%) were alive 4 years later, 163 (30%) died via complete loss of live tissue from the skeleton, and the remaining 155 (29%) died via dislodgement. The differing mortality patterns suggest that habitat characteristics, as well as species-specific features, may influence early life stage survival. Across most taxa, survival fit a logistic model, reaching > 90% annual survival within 4 years. These data suggest that mortality bottlenecks characteristic of 'recruitment' extend up to 5 years after individuals can be visually detected. Ultimately, replenishment of adult coral populations via sexual reproduction is needed to maintain both coral cover and genetic diversity. This study provides key insights into the dynamics and time scales that characterize these critical early life stages.

Considering the rates of growth in two taxa of coral across Pacific islands.

Reef-building coral taxa demonstrate considerable flexibility and diversity in reproduction and growth mechanisms. Corals take advantage of this flexibility to increase or decrease size through clonal expansion and loss of live tissue area (i.e. via reproduction and mortality of constituent polyps). The biological lability of reef-building corals may be expected to map onto varying patterns of demography across environmental contexts which can contribute to geographic variation in population dynamics. Here we explore the patterns of growth of two common coral taxa, corymbose Pocillopora and massive Porites, across seven islands in the central and south Pacific. The islands span a natural gradient of environmental conditions, including a range of pelagic primary production, a metric linked to the relative availability of inorganic nutrients and heterotrophic resources for mixotrophic corals, and sea surface temperature and thermal histories. Over a multi-year sampling interval, most coral colonies experienced positive growth (greater planar area of live tissue in second relative to first time point), though the distributions of growth varied across islands. Island-level median growth did not relate simply to estimated pelagic primary productivity or temperature. However, at locations that experienced an extreme warm-water event during the sampling interval, most Porites colonies experienced net losses of live tissue and nearly all Pocillopora colonies experienced complete mortality. While descriptive statistics of demographics offer valuable insights into trends and variability in colony change through time, simplified models predicting growth patterns based on summarized oceanographic metrics appear inadequate for robust demographic prediction. We propose that the complexity of life history strategies among colonial reef-building corals introduces unique demographic flexibility for colonies to respond to a wide breadth of environmental conditions.