Coral reefs are known to have extremely high rates of primary production. However, common geochemical methods for determining bulk rates of reef metabolism cannot distinguish which organisms are responsible for primary production. Here we used a “bottom‐up” approach to estimate the contribution of diverse primary producers including hard corals, octocorals, and algae to gross primary production on coral reefs by scaling up taxon‐specific rates by the abundance of those taxa in the environment. Chamber‐based production rates of the dominant primary producers were obtained as a function of irradiance, the primary short‐term driver of photosynthesis. These rates were then combined with annotated three‐dimensional (3D) reconstructions of reef sections and a simple light field model to estimate reef‐scale gross and net primary production rates over time. At a degraded reef in the Florida Keys octocorals and algae were the main producers, but at a more intact site a scleractinian coral (Acropora palmata) was the most important producer. As a validation of the approach, rates of primary production estimated using the “bottom‐up” approach were compared with in situ eddy covariance fluxes. The daily integrated rates agreed within 16%, though maximal production was ~ 35% lower in the “bottom‐up” approach likely due to under‐representation of octocorals and macroalgae in the 3D reconstructions. The “bottom up” approach yielded results that were largely consistent with the in situ measurements of primary production and irradiance with the significant benefit of providing taxon‐specific and spatially‐explicit primary production rates.

中文翻译：

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佛罗里达礁岛群中特定于分类单元的珊瑚礁初级生产力

众所周知，珊瑚礁的初级生产力很高。但是，用于确定礁石代谢的总体速率的常见地球化学方法无法区分哪些生物负责初级生产。在这里，我们使用“自下而上”的方法，通过增加环境中这些分类单元的数量来提高特定分类的比率，从而估算包括坚硬的珊瑚，八角珊瑚和藻类在内的各种初级生产者对珊瑚礁初级生产总值的贡献。根据主要光合作用的短期驱动力-辐照度，得出主要初级生产者基于室的生产率。然后，将这些速率与带注释的珊瑚礁区域三维（3D）重建以及简单的光场模型相结合，以估算一段时间内珊瑚礁规模的总生产率和净初级生产力。在佛罗里达礁岛的一块退化珊瑚礁上，八爪鱼和藻类是主要的生产者，而在一个完好无损的地方，有一个巩膜珊瑚（最重要的生产者是凤梨（Acropora palmata）。作为对该方法的验证，将使用“自下而上”方法估算的初级生产速率与原位涡动协方差通量进行了比较。尽管“八字鱼”和“大型藻类”在3D重建中的代表性不足，但“自下而上”方法的最高产量降低了约35％，但每日综合利用率却在16％的范围内。“自下而上”的方法所产生的结果与初级生产和辐照度的原位测量结果基本一致，具有提供特定分类和空间明晰的初级生产率的显着优势。