Transitional Coral Ecosystem of Taiwan in the Era of Changing Climate

The transitional coral ecosystem of Taiwan features tropical and temperate scleractinian coral species and suboptimal environmental conditions. As the largest continental island in the region, Taiwan is proposed as a stepping-stone for range expansion to higher latitudes of East Asia. In this chapter, we synthesize the literature and highlight the importance of the transitional role of Taiwanese coral ecosystem in sustaining its high-latitudinal counterparts in this era of changing climate. The boundary line separating tropical coral reefs and subtropical non-reefal coral communities stretches from south Penghu towards the Sandiao Cape in northeastern Taiwan. Between 1948 and 2020, the average seawater warming trend around Taiwan was 1.58 °C. This trend was not homogeneous; the region with non-reefal coral communities experienced a higher warming rate owing to gradually increasing winter sea surface temperatures. However, studies on the effect of typhoons, ocean acidification, and bioerosion on this transitional coral ecosystem are limited. To comprehensively understand how coral ecosystems in Taiwan respond to climate change, we recommended four research directions: (1) biodiversity formation, (2) the role of Kuroshio Current in reef formation and in connecting coral ecosystems of East Asia, (3) long-term ecological research of these coral ecosystems, and (4) the conservation and governance of transitional coral ecosystems using novel socio-ecological paradigms.