Matteo Bravo’s research while affiliated with University of Amsterdam and other places

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Publications (1)


Map of study areas in Colombia and respective experimental coral locations (white circles). (a) Isla de Providencia, with the nursery site along the coral reef edge. The dotted lines represent the Caribbean current; (b) Isla Grande, the main island of the archipelago of Islas del Rosario, and the nursery site located within the CEINER (Centro de Investigación Educación y Recreación). The white solid line represents sediments carried by Canal del Dique and the yellow dotted line is the Panama Colombia Counter current (PCC); (c) The city of S. Marta and the nursery site in the “Acuario y Museo del Mar Fospina SAS”, situated in Playa Inca Inca. The white dotted lines represent the Caribbean Current and the yellow dotted line is the PCC. Map image created using ArcGIS [GIS Software]. Version 10.8. Ocean current data from Restrepo et al. 2012; Moreno-Madriñán et al. 2015 and Correa-Ramirez et al. 2020
Environmental variables measured throughout the rainy season (May – November 2022) in the Colombian Caribbean. (a-c) Seawater temperature and heat stress exposure. Daily average, minimum, maximum temperature, and degree heating weeks (DHW) in (a) Providencia (offshore) from 1 June to 18 November 2022, (b) Rosario (midshore) from 21 May to 23 November 2022 and (c) S. Marta (inshore) from 17 June to 25 November 2022. The black arrow in panel (a) represents the passing of Hurricane Julia in Providencia. The blue dashed lines represent the local maximum monthly mean (MMM) temperature. Red solid lines are weekly cumulative heat stress (= degree heating weeks). (d-f) Photosynthetically Active Radiation (PAR) (µmol m− 2 s− 1) and (g-i) visibility measured using a Secchi disk (m). Daily light intensities in (d) Providencia from 5 September to 18 November 2022, (e) Rosario from 1 June to 15 July 2022, and (f) S. Marta from 17 June to 25 November 2022. Visibility measured once a week in (g) Providencia, (h) Rosario and (i) S. Marta. (l-n) Seawater pH recorded on the total scale at 10 min intervals over a period of three days at (l) Providencia, (m) Rosario, and (n) S. Marta. (o-q) Weekly nutrient concentrations measured in Providencia, Rosario, and S. Marta. (o) NO2⁻ + NO3⁻ (p) NH4⁺ and (q) PO4³⁻. Note that the Y-axis scaling differs between nutrient types
Calcification (mg cm⁻² d⁻¹) (a) and linear/radial extension rates (cm yr⁻¹) (b) measured in Providencia (September - November 2022), Rosario and S. Marta (October – November 2022). ACERV = A. cervicornis, APALM = A. palmata, PASTR = Po. astreoides, PPOR = Po. porites and PSTRIG = Ps. strigosa. The boxes represent the interquartile range (IQR), with the median indicated by the bold horizontal line inside each box. The whiskers extend to the minimum and maximum values within 1.5 times the IQR, with individual data points beyond the whiskers shown as dots. Boxes identified by two different letters indicate a significant interaction between species and sites (Pairwise mean comparison, p < 0.05; also reported in Table S9), while there is no significant difference if there is no letter. (c) Spatial variation of coral growth metrics (calcification and extension) at the three sites (P = Providencia, R = Rosario, S = S. Marta), illustrated by the first two components (PC1 and PC2) of a principal component analysis on square root-transformed data. Vectors represent the relative contribution of site-specific environmental variables to the total variation (Table S10)
Growth rates of five coral species across a strong environmental gradient in the Colombian Caribbean
  • Article
  • Full-text available

August 2024

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Marine Biology

Matteo Bravo

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Coral calcification is critical for reef growth and highly dependent on environmental conditions. Yet, little is known about how corals calcify under sub-optimal conditions (e.g., turbid waters, high nutrients, sedimentation) or coral growth in understudied regions such as the Colombian Caribbean. We therefore assessed the calcification and linear extension rates of five coral species across an inshore-to-offshore gradient in the Colombian Caribbean. A suite of environmental variables (temperature, light intensity, visibility, pH, nutrients) measured during the rainy season (May – November 2022) demonstrated more sub-optimal conditions inshore compared to offshore. Across all species, calcification rates were 59% and 37% lower inshore compared to the offshore and midshore sites, respectively. Across all sites, massive corals calcified up to 92% more than branching species but were more susceptible to heat stress and sub-optimal inshore conditions. However, branching species had reduced survival due to extreme climatic events (i.e., bleaching, hurricanes). A comparison with published rates for the wider Caribbean revealed that massive species in the Colombian Caribbean grow up to 11 times more than those in the wider Caribbean while branching species generally have similar growth rates, but this finding may have been influenced by fragment size and/or heat stress. Our findings indicate that present-day environmental conditions, coupled with more frequent extreme climatic events, will favor massive over branching species in midshore areas of the Colombian Caribbean. This suggests a possible shift towards faster calcifying massive species in future coral communities, possibly exacerbating the ongoing regional decline in branching species over the last decades.

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