Multiple stressor interaction of nutrient enrichment and crude oil pollution on benthic recruitment on a Red Sea coral reef
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Ann Marie Hulver Final Thesis.pdf
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Hulver Thesis
Type
ThesisAuthors
Hulver, Ann
Advisors
Berumen, Michael L.
Committee members
Jones, Burton
Wang, Peng

Program
Marine ScienceKAUST Department
Biological and Environmental Science and Engineering (BESE) DivisionDate
2018-11Embargo End Date
2019-11-28Permanent link to this record
http://hdl.handle.net/10754/630090
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At the time of archiving, the student author of this thesis opted to temporarily restrict access to it. The full text of this thesis became available to the public after the expiration of the embargo on 2019-11-28.Abstract
The Red Sea is one of the warmest, saltiest, and most oligotrophic seas in the world that supports a healthy and extremely diverse coral reef ecosystem. Increasing development along the Saudi Arabian coast may increase eutrophication due to impacts of human population and also oil pollution from increased shipping traffic and refinery activity. The risk of oil pollution combined with increased eutrophication due to coastal development provides a clear stressor interaction which is vastly understudied. Individually, these stressors are known to negatively impact coral reproduction, recruitment, and growth. This study focuses on reef settlement and recovery following experimentally-simulated disturbance scenarios. Carbonate recruitment tiles were placed on the reef and exposed to four treatments: control, nutrient enrichment with slow-release fertilizer, tiles soaked in crude oil, and a combination treatment of nutrient enrichment and oil-coated tiles. At periods of 3, 6, 9, 14, and 17 weeks, tiles were collected to classify the settled community and measure oxygen production. Oil, nitrate, and phosphate were the biggest determining factors predicting settlement and oxygen production of the different treatments. The oil treatment had the least overall settlement and oxygen production, whereas the nutrient treatment had the most turf algal recruitment and oxygen production. The combination treatment had an antagonistic effect on algal growth: the nutrients facilitated growth on the otherwise toxic oiled tiles.Citation
Hulver, A. (2018). Multiple stressor interaction of nutrient enrichment and crude oil pollution on benthic recruitment on a Red Sea coral reef. KAUST Research Repository. https://doi.org/10.25781/KAUST-53R10ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.25781/KAUST-53R10