A new study finds that restoring native ecosystems on vulnerable low-lying islands could help them keep up with rising seas. Researchers measured "reef accretion potential" and found it was twice as high on lagoonal and ocean-facing reefs around rat-free islands with abundant seabirds as around rat-infested islands.
Co-author Casey Benkwitt, a California-based restoration scientist with The Nature Conservancy, said that rate would be "sufficient to closely keep up with predicted sea-level rises to the end of the century under a 2° Celsius warming scenario." Reef growth rates without seabird populations are less likely to keep pace with projected sea-level rise, she added.
The study does not present rewilding as a miracle solution. It made no direct before-and-after restoration comparisons, and its data came from islands with different levels of seabird abundance and rat infestations. Reef accretion also does not always mean an atoll is growing vertically, since changing waves, winds, and currents affect where material ends up. The work focused on mostly uninhabited islands with room for native ecosystems. On developed atolls, restoration can help but will not replace engineering solutions.
Ecologist Hillary Young, writing in a Science Advances Focus commentary, said the study shows a nearly complete loop "from ocean-foraging seabirds, through native forests and coral reefs, back to the construction and stabilization of the islands on which the birds breed." She noted that rapid reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions remain essential to the long-term viability of these systems.
Source: Ars Technica · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing