Estimativa da vulnerabilidade dos corais brasileiros

• Ano de defesa: 2016
• Autor(a) principal: Andrade, André Felipe Alves de
• Orientador(a): De Marco Junior, Paulo
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: por
• Instituição de defesa: Universidade Federal de Goiás
• Programa de Pós-Graduação: Programa de Pós-graduação em Ecologia e Evolução (ICB)
• Departamento: Instituto de Ciências Biológicas - ICB (RG)
• País: Brasil
• Palavras-chave em Português: Recifes de coral; Conservação; Vulnerabilidade; Modelos de distribuição; Avaliação de modelos de distribuição
• Palavras-chave em Inglês: Species distribution model; Evaluation; ENM; SDM; Coral; Independence; Marine environments climate change; Anthropogenic impacts; Seascape ecology; Prioritisation; Coral reefs; Environmental niche modelling
• Área do conhecimento CNPq: ECOLOGIA::ECOLOGIA APLICADA
• Link de acesso: http://repositorio.bc.ufg.br/tede/handle/tede/5592

Coral reefs are of extreme importance to both nature and society, due to being responsible for several services and harbouring hundreds of species. Despite such critical importance, reef corals current suffered heavy losses since the Anthropocene, with 20% of world´s corals damaged beyond recovery due to human pressure and coastal development. This scenario is even worse, since corals are especially vulnerable to climate change and the entire ecosystem could go extinct by 2050. In this study we focus on comparing the already established impacts from human development and the yet happen losses from climate change on Brazilian corals, a unique fauna that still have gaps in knowledge. We created environmental suitability models for 24 species and quantified individual losses from both climate change and human activities. From the individual results we derived an overall pattern, in which we found out that future losses from climate alteration are equivalent to current losses from human activities. We then used the spatial distribution of those activities and key areas for conservation, determined with software Zonation, to select six areas in the Brazilian exclusive economic zone where proactive and reactive conservation strategies should be implanted, given its importance to biodiversity and concentrated anthropogenic impacts. Overall suitability losses were of approximately 30% for both sources and 60% of the areas will continue to be suitable in the future. Therefore, Brazilian corals will experience heavy losses from climate, especially the loss of highly suitable areas, which are compared to effects from human economic activities. Coral situation is likely to be even worse, if we were to consider bleaching, ocean acidification and diseases, events expected to increase with the rising temperature.