Physical drivers of historical deoxygenation events and capacity for reef recovery in a fringing reef system
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Deoxygenation events threaten coral reefs as they can result in biodiversity loss and are expected to occur more frequently with increasing sea temperatures and eutrophication. Multiple deoxygenation events have occurred at Bill’s Bay, a semi-enclosed lagoon within the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Ningaloo Marine Park, and have been associated with significant ecosystem impacts, including fish kills and coral mortality. Although these events are thought to be linked to the entrapment and decomposition of coral spawn, the physical mechanisms that trigger these events remain poorly understood, making it difficult to predict when these events may occur and to assess the capacity for reef recovery. Here, we identify the physical conditions associated with known deoxygenation events and develop thresholds to support the prediction of future events. We also examine the status of the coral communities and juvenile abundance in Bill’s Bay using a multi-decadal dataset. The results show that for recorded events, anomalous physical conditions shut down the typical water circulation patterns and trap coral spawn slicks close to shore for longer than usual. Coral cover and juvenile abundance in the inner and middle lagoon were the lowest on record following the 2022 event and were composed of just a few tolerant genera. Yet, coral cover and juvenile abundance remained relatively high in the outer lagoon, which importantly may promote future recovery. Bill’s Bay is located within a sanctuary zone and has minimal impacts from local anthropogenic pressures, yet our results suggest that it is predisposed to these naturally occurring deoxygenation events.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".