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1. Post-disturbance recovery dynamics of connected coral subpopulations

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s12080-024-00598-0  

   Torres, Walter I; Holstein, Daniel M; Putnam, Hollie M; Edmunds, Peter J; Puritz, Jonathan B; Toonen, Robert J; Hench, James L (December 2025, Theoretical Ecology)
2. Juvenile corals underpin coral reef carbonate production after disturbance

   https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.15610  

   Carlot, Jérémy; Kayal, Mohsen; Lenihan, Hunter S.; Brandl, Simon J.; Casey, Jordan M.; Adjeroud, Mehdi; Cardini, Ulisse; Merciere, Alexandre; Espiau, Benoit; Barneche, Diego R.; et al (June 2021, Global Change Biology)

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3. Mesoscale Circulation and Coral Community Disturbance at Isolated Reefs

   https://doi.org/10.1002/gcb4.70005  

   Carpenter, Gaby E; Farmer, Benjamin H; Craft, Hannah E; Apprill, Amy; Brandt, Marilyn E; Correa, Adrienne_M S; Mydlarz, Laura D; Holstein, Daniel M (January 2026, Global Change Biology Communications)

   ABSTRACT Marine disturbance events are often influenced by the environment, making it difficult to parse abiotic and biotic drivers. This is particularly true of disease infection and spread in coral reef environments, where pathogens are challenging to isolate and transmission may occur through the movement of water masses. Here we assess mesoscale conditions related to coral community disturbance from 2001 to 2023 on isolated reefs, using the Flower Garden Banks (FGB) as a case study. During the study period, relative to other western Atlantic reefs, this high latitude coral reef system experienced relatively few disturbance events (2 disease events, 1 hypoxia event, and 6 thermal stress events) and lower coral mortality, allowing it to maintain remarkably high coral cover. We explore mesoscale oceanographic features during the study period, predominantly the northwest extension of the Loop Current (LC), to understand its connection to disturbance events at FGB. LC position was linked to disease and hypoxia events, but not consistently to thermal stress events. Low LC extension, as seen in 2016, may have facilitated the transport of freshwater river output across the GoM resulting in a hypoxia event at FGB. To examine the influence of circulation and upstream connectivity to disease at FGB, we used a biophysical Lagrangian particle tracking model to backtrack virtual disease agents from FGB over 23 years of hydrodynamic forcing. Our results highlight a link between observed coral disease incidence at FGB, seasonality, and a 30‐day connectivity window to reefs of the Mesoamerican Reef. Operational biophysical and oceanographic models can provide a valuable tool for reef disturbance prediction and monitoring. These models are likely to become increasingly relevant as climate change alters the behavior of ocean circulation, with implications for reef connectivity, disease dispersal, freshwater inputs, and the management of these and other isolated coral reefs. 

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4. Recovery potential of fish and coral populations following ecological disturbance

   https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.4915  

   Asbury, Mollie; Innes‐Gold, Anne A; Wulstein, Devynn M; Madin, Elizabeth_M P; Madin, Joshua S; McManus, Lisa C (June 2024, Ecosphere)

   Abstract The health of coral reef benthic and fish communities is implicitly connected, yet typically studied and managed separately. By developing a coupled reef population model that connects coral populations and reef fish biomass through the habitat complexity that corals build and fish live among, we aim to address this gap by holistically quantifying ecological feedbacks and responses to ecological stressors. We explored the impacts of fishing effort in conjunction with three types of ecological disturbances as they propagated through a coral reef ecosystem: (1) a disturbance that disproportionately affected small, bio‐energetically vulnerable colonies, (2) a disturbance that predominantly affected large, mechanically vulnerable colonies, and (3) a disturbance that affected colonies of all sizes randomly. We found that joint coral and fish population recovery was fastest and most complete under events affecting small colonies, followed by recovery from disturbances affecting random sizes, and lastly large‐colony disturbances. These results suggest that the retention versus loss of large coral colonies with high reproductive potential critically influenced population recovery. Low fishing levels maintained fish and coral populations and allowed for recovery after disturbances, whereas high fishing levels prevented recovery due to greater fish‐dependent coral mortality. Finally, we tested various formulations of the relationship between coral size and habitat complexity (i.e., exponential, linear, logarithmic) that constrain fish carrying capacity. All formulations led to similar population projections in most disturbance scenarios, but there were exceptions where the timing and trajectory of recovery differed, such as faster and greater recovery potential when complexity is logarithmic with respect to coral size. These findings suggest that fishing and habitat complexity mediate the recovery of coral reef populations, emphasizing the importance of describing linkages between coral size distribution and reef habitat structure. Furthermore, our results highlight the utility of the coupled‐model framework for understanding and managing the impact of disturbances at ecosystem scales. 

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5. Changing disturbance regimes, material legacies, and stabilizing feedbacks: Dead coral skeletons impair key recovery processes following coral bleaching

   https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.17504  

   Kopecky, Kai L; Holbrook, Sally J; Partlow, Emalia; Cunningham, Madeline; Schmitt, Russell J (September 2024, Global Change Biology)

   Ecosystem responses to disturbance depend on the nature of the perturbation and the ecological legacies left behind, making it critical to understand how climate‐driven changes in disturbance regimes modify resilience properties of ecosystems. For coral reefs, recent increases in severe marine heat waves now co‐occur with powerful storms, the historic agent of disturbance. While storms kill coral and remove their skeletons, heat waves bleach and kill corals but leave their skeletons intact. Here, we explored how the material legacy of dead coral skeletons modifies two key ecological processes that underpin coral reef resilience: the ability of herbivores to control macroalgae (spatial competitors of corals), and the replenishment of new coral colonies. Our findings, grounded by a major bleaching event at our long‐term study locale, revealed that the presence of structurally complex dead skeletons reduced grazing on turf algae by ~80%. For macroalgae, browsing was reduced by >40% on less preferred (unpalatable) taxa, but only by ~10% on more preferred taxa. This enabled unpalatable macroalgae to reach ~45% cover in 2 years. By contrast, herbivores prevented macroalgae from becoming established on adjacent reefs that lacked skeletons. Manipulation of unpalatable macroalgae revealed that the cover reached after 1 year (~20%) reduced recruitment of corals by 50%. The effect of skeletons on juvenile coral growth was contingent on the timing of settlement relative to the disturbance. If corals settled directly after bleaching (before macroalgae colonized), dead skeletons enhanced colony growth by 34%, but this benefit was lost if corals colonized dead skeletons a year after the disturbance once macroalgae had proliferated. These findings underscore how a material legacy from a changing disturbance regime can alter ecosystem resilience properties by disrupting key trophic and competitive interactions that shape post‐disturbance community dynamics. 

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