Data from: Coral reef state influences resilience to acute climate-mediated disturbances

Aim: Understand the interplay between resistance and recovery on coral reefs, and investigate dependence on pre- and post-disturbance states, to inform generalisable reef resilience theory across large spatial and temporal scales.

Location: Tropical coral reefs globally.

Time period: 1966 to 2017.

Major taxa studied: Scleratinian hard corals.

Methods: We conducted a literature search to compile a global dataset of total coral cover before and after acute storms, temperature stress, and coastal runoff from flooding events. We used meta-regression to identify variables that explained significant variation in disturbance impact, including disturbance type, year, depth, and pre-disturbance coral cover. We further investigated the influence of these same variables, as well as post-disturbance coral cover and disturbance impact, on recovery rate. We examined the shape of recovery, assigning qualitatively distinct, ecologically relevant, population growth trajectories: linear, logistic, logarithmic (decelerating), and a second-order quadratic (accelerating).

Results: We analysed 427 disturbance impacts and 117 recovery trajectories. Accelerating and logistic were the most common recovery shapes, underscoring non-linearities and recovery lags. A complex but meaningful relationship between the state of a reef pre- and post-disturbance, disturbance impact magnitude, and recovery rate was identified. Fastest recovery rates were predicted for intermediate to large disturbance impacts, but a decline in this rate was predicted when more than ~75% of pre-disturbance cover was lost. We identified a shifting baseline, with declines in both pre-and post-disturbance coral cover over the 50 year study period.

Main conclusions: We breakdown the complexities of coral resilience, showing interplay between resistance and recovery, as well as dependence on both pre- and post-disturbance states, alongside documenting a chronic decline in these states. This has implications for predicting coral reef futures and implementing actions to enhance resilience.