Growth of Western Australian corals in the Anthropocene

Twenty-seven long cores were collected between October 2008 and September 2010 from massive Porites sp. colonies at six locations covering approximately 1000 km of the coast of Western Australia. The sampling locations included two reefs in the Rowley Shoals: Clerke Reef and Imperieuse Reef; three locations within the Ningaloo Reef Tract: Bundegi, Tantabiddi and Coral Bay; and the Houtman Abrolhos Islands.All sampled colonies were While some cores extended back to the 18th century, focus was on the period 1900-2010, which was common to the majority (70%) of cores, and provided sufficient replication at each location and overlap with instrumental SST observations. Average monthly SST were obtained from the HadISST 1.1 database, available from the British Atmospheric Data Centre.Calcification anomalies were calculated for each core as the percent difference between the annual calcification rate and the long-term average for the period 1900-2010. Calcification anomalies were then averaged for each six locations and for all 27 cores. Linear regression (Generalized Linear Model (GLM) and non-linear regression (Generalized Additive models were used to examine the influence of time, SST and location on the calcification average and anomaly data. All models were analysed using the statistical package R.
This research was undertaken to:1. determine if there have been significant changes in calcification rates in coral reefs in Western Australia over time2. determine if there is any relationship between any changes calcification rates and observed changes in sea surface temperature (SST).

2008年10月至2010年9月间，研究人员在西澳大利亚沿岸约1000公里范围的6个采样点位，从块状滨珊瑚（Massive Porites sp.）群落中采集了27根长珊瑚岩芯。采样点位包括罗利沙洲（Rowley Shoals）的两处礁体：克拉克礁（Clerke Reef）与因佩里尤斯礁（Imperieuse Reef）；宁格鲁礁海域（Ningaloo Reef Tract）内的3个点位：邦德吉（Bundegi）、坦塔比迪（Tantabiddi）与珊瑚湾（Coral Bay），以及赫特曼阿博罗霍斯群岛（Houtman Abrolhos Islands）。所有采样的珊瑚群落均状态完好，尽管部分岩芯的沉积记录可追溯至18世纪，但研究重点聚焦于1900-2010年时段：该时段覆盖了70%的岩芯样本，且在每个采样点均具备足够的重复采样量，同时与仪器观测的海表温度（Sea Surface Temperature, SST）记录存在重合区间。月均海表温度数据来自HadISST 1.1数据库，可通过英国大气数据中心（British Atmospheric Data Centre）获取。针对每根岩芯，以1900-2010年时段的长期平均钙化率为基准，计算其钙化异常值——即年钙化率与该长期平均值的百分比差值。随后，针对6个采样点及全部27根岩芯分别计算钙化异常值的平均值。本研究采用线性回归（广义线性模型（Generalized Linear Model, GLM））与非线性回归（广义可加模型（Generalized Additive Models, GAMs）），探究时间、海表温度及采样点位对钙化率平均值与异常值数据集的影响。所有模型均通过统计软件R完成分析。本研究旨在达成两项研究目标：1. 明确西澳大利亚沿岸珊瑚礁的钙化率随时间是否发生了显著变化；2. 探究钙化率的变化与观测到的海表温度变化之间是否存在关联。