Data for: Coral adaptive capacity insufficient to halt global transition of coral reefs into net erosion under climate change

Projecting the effects of climate change on net reef calcium carbonate production is critical to understanding the future impacts on ecosystem function, but prior estimates have not included corals’ natural adaptive capacity to such change. Here we estimate how the ability of symbionts to evolve tolerance to heat stress, or for coral hosts to shuffle to favourable symbionts, and their combination, may influence responses to the combined impacts of ocean warming and acidification under three representative concentration pathway emissions scenarios (RCP2.6, RCP4.5, RCP8.5). We show that symbiont evolution and shuffling both individually and when combined favours persistent positive net reef calcium carbonate production. However, our projections of future net calcium carbonate production under climate change vary both spatially and by RCP. For example, 19–35% of modelled coral reefs are still projected to have net positive net calcium carbonate production by 2050 if symbionts can evolve in..., See the methods of the paper.,