Effects of suspended sediments, dissolved inorganic nutrients and salinity on fertilisation and embryo development in the coral Acropora millepora (Ehrenberg, 1834)

By Craig Humphrey, Miriam Weber, C. Lott, T. Cooper, Katharina E. Fabricius. Coral reefs, 2008

113 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Exposure of coral reefs to river plumes carrying increasing loads of nutrients and sediments is a pressing issue for coral reefs around the world including the Great Barrier Reef (GBR). Laboratory experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of changes in inorganic nutrients (nitrate, ammonium and phosphate), salinity and various types of suspended sediments in isolation and in combination on rates of fertilisation and early embryonic development of the scleractinian coral Acropora millepora. Dose–response experiments showed that fertilisation declined significantly with increasing sediments and decreasing salinity, while inorganic nutrients at up to 20 μM nitrate or ammonium and 4 μM phosphate had no significant effect on fertilisation. Suspended sediments of ≥100 mg l−1 and salinity of 30 ppt reduced fertilisation by >50%. Developmental abnormality occurred in 100% of embryos at 30 ppt salinity, and no fertilisation occurred at ≤28 ppt. Another experiment tested interactions between sediment, salinity and nutrients and showed that fertilisation was significantly reduced when nutrients and low concentrations of sediments co-occurred, although both on their own had no effect on fertilisation rates. Similarly, while slightly reduced salinity on its own had no effect, fertilisation was reduced when it coincided with elevated levels of sediments or nutrients. Both these interactions were synergistic. A third experiment showed that sediments with different geophysical and nutrient properties had differential effects on fertilisation, possibly related to sediment and nutrient properties. The findings highlight the complex nature of the effects of changing water quality on coral health, particularly stressing the significance of water quality during coral spawning time.

Subfields: Ecology, Global and Planetary Change, Nature and Landscape Conservation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/51ca919ed3e29cb5f6238736ae2715facefacd6e

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Citations in the corpus

Sexual production of corals for reef restoration in the Anthropocene (2020, background): “…fertilisation success and can cause embryonic abnormalities include elevated inorganic nutrient concentrations (reviewed in Fabricius et al. 2005, Humphrey et al. 2008, Lam et al. 2015, Richmond et al. 2018), pCO2 (Albright 2011, Albright & Mason 2013), sediments (reviewed in Jones et al. 2015),…”
Environmental impacts of dredging and other sediment disturbances on corals: a review. (2012, unknown): “…declines in fertilisation success were reported for Acropora millepora at suspended-sediment levels P100 mg L 1 compared with lower levels ranging from 0 to50 mg L 1 with approximately 36% fertilisation at the highest tested suspended-sediment levels of 200 mg L 1 (Humphrey et al., 2008).”