2025-08-18 SMA-03-000007 Testimony Maki Morinoue

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a b 0.30 -2003 20 •Positive trajectory .• -2007 15 •Negative trajectory • 0.25 -2011 0 10 . + • w m 2014 m • •' '• 0 0.20 5 - - - - - 0 0 -5 a Range in o-10 ....- 0.05 mean cover U 15 -20 f 0 10 20 30. .40 50 60 70 80 (O O10 OA 00 O°j .�O .�'� .�`1' .�`5 Na Coral cover(%) 'pO ry0 'p 'p ry0 ry0 ry0 ry0 ry0 ry0 ry0 ry0 C Year o • • • • • • N M • • N U U1 F -0.3 -0.2 -0.1 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 Squared canonical correlation(83.2%) d 400 20.0 250 100 10.0 80 2.0 60 1.5 40 m 15 • 1.0 20 0 0.5 t 0 a • 1� 2i 0 0 • • 0� 20 0.5 >° ° 0 40 Z 1.0 60 1.5 10.0 80 ■�■ am" _ r r r o tir �r r F �A \0c5 1 z1 o0 0 �aQe oly G�av >L`0c Q0y \tea o'(`\ �O `ey�� .QO� \act` �,�� ap� �ap� ,o`° �&� 0 0� Oa ee+ ec Oc Q° ear �oQ `o �a`c `a`c oe a��O�ace t1 1 Lei O<` 1 c 0 ec r� Oa S� �a 0 5r z Fig.21 Reeftrajectories predisturbance and associated local land-sea increasingly more distinct set ofconditions than expected by chance alone). human impacts and environmental factors.a,Coral cover distributions cl,Mean difference(dots)in drop-onejackknife values with upper and lower among surveyed reefs between 2003 and 2014(n=23).b,Coral cover bars representing the respective maximum and minimum differences in local trajectories ofindividual reefs.A reelfwas considered on a positive trajectory human impacts and environmental factors between positive and negative (blue;n=10)or negative trajectory(red;n=8)ifcoral cover between 2003 and trajectory reefs(n=same as in b).Blue and red shaded regions indicate factors 2014 changed by more than 3%.This cut-offwas based on mean coral cover that were greater on reefs that had positive and negative trajectories, range among all 23 reefs for the l2-yearpredisturbance period(range 2.8%;min respectively.Zero line represents equal values.See Extended Data Fig.3for 34.1%;max 36.9%).Reefs with no coral cover change(within±3%)are not shown. the percentage difference in local conditions between positive and negative c,Difference in local conditions between positive versus negative trajectory trajectory reefs.We included all local human impacts and environmental reefs(PERMANOVA,pseudo-F1,17=3.38,P=0.001)visualized along a single factors indto provide a general comparison of local conditions between reefs multivariate axis(capturing the multidimensional and correlated nature ofthe with divergent trajectories.See Fig.lb for reef locations and Supplementary data,Supplementary Fig.2)using a canonical analysis ofprincipal coordinates Fig.3 for predictor variable distributions.See Methods,Extended Data Table 1 (n=same as in b).Allocation success equalled 90 and 87.5%for positive and Supplementary Information for detailed information on local land-sea and negative trajectory reefs,respectively(more than 50%indicates an human impacts and environmental factors. inclusive of this time frame(Fig.2c).For example,the average biomass a 15 km radius).This finding supports the notion that human popula- of all fishes,all herbivorous fishes and groups of herbivorous fishes that tion density is a poor indicator of human-driven land-sea impacts at fill important ecological roles such as scrapers,grazers and browsers30 local scales".We observed minimal differences between positive and were 24-113%(29-214 kg ha-')greater on reefs with positive trajectories negative trajectory reefs relative to fishing gear restrictions,depth, compared to those with negative trajectories(Fig.2d and Extended Data sediment input,ocean temperatures,phytoplankton biomass and Fig.3).These patterns probably reflect positive feedbacks,whereby rainfall.Wave exposure was slightly higher(8.6 kW II on reefs with increasing coral cover promotes habitat suitability for reef fishes,with positive trajectories,but the difference is minor because the entire herbivorous fishes then facilitating coral growth by reducing com- study region is generally protected from large wave events34. petitive exclusion by Fleshyalgae32.By contrast,wastewater pollution, nutrient loading and urban runoff were 46-80%greater on reefs with negative trajectories compared to those with positive trajectories. Coral response to the marine heatWave Despitethese land-based human stressors being comparatively higher In 2015,the Hawaiian Islands experienced the strongest marine Keat- on reefs with negative trajectories,reefswith positive trajectories had wave on record over the past120 years(Extended Data Fig.2).Ocean 63%greater human population density(the number of people within temperatures across our study region were 2.2°C above normal and Nature I www.nature.com 1 3