Long-term decline in Acropora species at Kut Island, Thailand, in relation to coral bleaching events
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BIODIVERSITY OF CORAL REEFS
Long-term decline in Acropora species at Kut Island, Thailand, in relation to coral bleaching events Thamasak Yeemin & Sittiporn Pengsakun & Mathinee Yucharoen & Wanlaya Klinthong & Kanwara Sangmanee & Makamas Sutthacheep
Received: 7 June 2012 / Revised: 18 November 2012 / Accepted: 19 November 2012 # Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012
Abstract Coral reefs in the Gulf of Thailand suffered from severe bleaching in the summer of 2010. Coral taxa were affected with various levels of intensity, eventually causing high mortality among many coral species, such as Acropora spp. Surveys at three sites at Kut Island in the eastern part of the Gulf of Thailand revealed that, before the 2010 bleaching event took place, live cover of Acropora was very low (0.35– 1.46 %) and later even decreased to 0.1 %. Only A. millepora colonies were affected. The low Acropora coverage at the study sites before the event was still a result of the previous massive coral bleaching in 1998. Densities of juvenile Acropora colonies before the 2010 bleaching event were also very low at the study sites (on average 0.01–0.03 m−2), with no recruitment for up to nearly 2 years. Several Acropora species that were previously found at Kut Island are presently at risk for local extinction or may have already disappeared. Keywords Acropora . Coral bleaching . Gulf of Thailand . Local extinction . Mortality
Introduction Most small islands in tropical countries harbor extensive coral reefs along their coastlines that provide a number of ecosystem services, such as food from small-scale fisheries, income from tourism and shoreline protection against waves and erosion. Coral reefs also play a major role in the culture of island populations. Therefore, the socio-economic and T. Yeemin (*) : S. Pengsakun : M. Yucharoen : W. Klinthong : K. Sangmanee : M. Sutthacheep Marine Biodiversity Research Group, Faculty of Science, Ramkhamhaeng University, Huamark, Bangkok 10240, Thailand e-mail: [email protected]
cultural benefits of coral reefs are very important to island communities and nations (Cesar 2000; Hoegh-Guldberg 2011). Thailand is one of these nations, with a total of 153 km2 of coral reefs, consisting of 78 km2 in the Andaman Sea and 75 km2 in the Gulf of Thailand (Yeemin et al. 2006) Although coral reefs are critically important to many tropical country economies, they face a wide range of threats, including impacts from coastal development, agricultural runoff, tourism, overfishing, sedimentation, and eutrophication (Spalding et al. 2001; Wilkinson 2004; Burke et al. 2011; Erftemeijer et al. 2012). In addition, climate change has begun to compound these more local threats to coral reefs in many ways. Seawater temperature anomalies have already caused widespread coral mortality from coral bleaching events (Hoegh-Guldberg 1999; Jokiel and Brown 2004; Veron et al. 2009; Brown and Cossins 2011; Ceccarelli et al. 2011). The Gulf of Thailand experienced a widespread seawat
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