Kayal was supported by a grant from La Polynésienne des Eaux ( and Planète Urgence ( and by Aqua Lung ( through the provision of SCUBA-diving equipment. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.įunding: This study was supported by the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research and the Ministry of Overseas Territories, the EU funded project PSICoPopS (EC FP7 – PIOF-220798), and the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes. Received: Accepted: SeptemPublished: October 8, 2012Ĭopyright: © Kayal et al. The Australian National University, Australia (2012) Predator Crown-of-Thorns Starfish ( Acanthaster planci) Outbreak, Mass Mortality of Corals, and Cascading Effects on Reef Fish and Benthic Communities. By elucidating the processes involved in an Acanthaster outbreak, our study contributes to comprehending this widespread disturbance and should thus benefit targeted management actions for coral reef ecosystems.Ĭitation: Kayal M, Vercelloni J, Lison de Loma T, Bosserelle P, Chancerelle Y, Geoffroy S, et al. Using a hierarchical, multi-scale approach, we also show how sessile benthic communities and resident coral-feeding fish assemblages were subsequently affected by the decline of corals. The outbreak we report here is among the most intense and devastating ever reported. Acanthaster outbreaks thus result in predictable alteration of the coral community structure. Coral decline on impacted reefs occurs by the sequential consumption of species in the order of Acanthaster feeding preferences. The directional migration across reefs appears to be a search for prey as reef portions affected by dense seastar aggregations are rapidly depleted of living corals and subsequently left behind. Elevated Acanthaster densities then progressively spread to adjacent and shallower locations by migrations of seastars in aggregative waves that eventually affect the entire reef system. Acanthaster outbreaks on insular reef systems like Moorea's appear to originate from restricted areas confined to the ocean-exposed base of reefs. Based on observations of a recent event around the island of Moorea, French Polynesia, we show that Acanthaster outbreaks are methodic, slow-paced, and diffusive biological disturbances. While cyclic occurrences of such outbreaks are reported from many tropical reefs throughout the Indo-Pacific, their causes are hotly debated, and the spatio-temporal dynamics of the outbreaks and impacts to reef communities remain unclear. These events consist of the emergence of large swarms of the predatory seastar that feed on reef-building corals, often leading to widespread devastation of coral populations.
Outbreaks of the coral-killing seastar Acanthaster planci are intense disturbances that can decimate coral reefs.
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