Rewilding Could Help Vulnerable Atoll Islands Keep Pace With Rising Seas, Study Finds
A study of 28 atoll islands in the Pacific and Indian oceans found that restoring native vegetation and seabird populations can reinforce island growth, helping them adapt to rising seas.
An international team led by Nick Graham, a marine ecologist at Lancaster University in the United Kingdom, studied island resilience across 28 atoll islands in the Pacific and Indian oceans. The team concluded that atolls with native vegetation and thriving seabird populations are “naturally active systems that can change and adapt to their environmental conditions if they are allowed to do so,” Graham said.
The study describes how seabirds ferry nutrients from the open ocean and deposit them on the atolls as guano. That guano nurtures land plants, marine life and coral growth. The process provides more material for reef building, as parrotfish and other reef feeders turn dead coral into sand to maintain beaches. Native plants with extensive root networks stabilize sediments.
Coral-fringed tropical atolls are among the landforms most threatened by global warming. Many have a potential superpower in healthy ecosystems, the study suggests, because those ecosystems can help them keep pace with rising seas. The researchers point to restoration as a way to reinforce the islands' natural growth.