Inorganic and organic nutrients in tropical–subtropical Western Pacific coral reef waters

Abstract

Coral reef ecosystems host diversified and highly productive communities, but corals are degrading in many places worldwide. Picking suitable locations to maximize coral conservation and restoration efforts is critical. From a mass balance point of view, the supply of new nutrients is crucial to support a productive and reef-building coral ecosystem. Quantifying and qualifying available nutrients provide information to set region-specific thresholds for anthropogenic pollution monitoring and to generate research hypotheses. Here, we report the inorganic and organic nutrient levels from twenty-three sampling sites in coral reefs and coastal waters covering regions from high to low coral coverage, including two remote islands, Dongsha Atoll and Taiping Island, in the South China Sea. Some of the surveyed reefs received external inorganic nutrient supply via upwelling or submarine groundwater discharge (SGD), suggesting sites potential for new production (i.e., reef-building). Production or removal of organic matter at various sites is evidenced by their elevated or depleted organic carbon and nitrogen concentrations, respectively. The degree of impact by the upwelling and SGD on various inorganic and organic nutrient distribution varies. Among all sites, organic nitrogen accounts for most of the total nitrogen and is potentially a significant nitrogen source for the environment. The highly correlated total organic nitrogen (TON) concentrations and their C-to-N ratios (C/N_-TON) suggest the production of TON with low C/N_-TON and preferential removal of N during remineralization processes, leaving “leftover” TON with high C/N ratios. Furthermore, we found that high coral diversity and coverage sites are featured in low organic matter with high C/N, while macroalgae-dominating sites had elevated organic matter. The new data are valuable to generate hypotheses for future research to test, for example, whether sites with low organic matter are more suitable for restoring reef-building corals than sites with high organic matter.