One-Third of Reef-Building Corals Face Elevated Extinction Risk from Climate Change and Local Impacts

By K. Carpenter, M. Abrar, G. Aeby, R. Aronson, S. Banks, A. Bruckner, A. Chiriboga, J. Cortés, J. C. Delbeek, L. Devantier and 29 more. Science, 2008

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The conservation status of 845 zooxanthellate reef-building coral species was assessed by using International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List Criteria. Of the 704 species that could be assigned conservation status, 32.8% are in categories with elevated risk of extinction. Declines in abundance are associated with bleaching and diseases driven by elevated sea surface temperatures, with extinction risk further exacerbated by local-scale anthropogenic disturbances. The proportion of corals threatened with extinction has increased dramatically in recent decades and exceeds that of most terrestrial groups. The Caribbean has the largest proportion of corals in high extinction risk categories, whereas the Coral Triangle (western Pacific) has the highest proportion of species in all categories of elevated extinction risk. Our results emphasize the widespread plight of coral reefs and the urgent need to enact conservation measures.

Subfields: Ecology, Global and Planetary Change, Oceanography

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/45e922609a062dcb36654d7eec574d7b62192b06

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Citations in the corpus

Patterns, Causes, and Consequences of Anthropocene Defaunation (2016, background): “…corals are the only group of invertebrate fauna (land or sea) to have been comprehensively assessed by the IUCN, and they are experiencing some of the most extreme declines of any taxa: Approximately one third were determined to be threatened with extinction (Carpenter et al. 2008, IUCN 2015).”
Caribbean Acropora restoration guide : best practices for propagation and population enhancement. (2011, background): “Experts predict that one-third of all reef-building corals are at risk of extinction (Carpenter et al. 2008); fully 75% of reefs are highly threatened by the compounding effects of local stressors and factors associated with global climate change (e.”
The biodiversity of species and their rates of extinction, distribution, and protection (2014, background): “There are similar maps for 845 reef-building coral species (29), coastal fish, various marine predators, and invertebrates (54, 55).”
A Review of Reef Restoration and Coral Propagation Using the Threatened Genus Acropora in the Caribbean and Western Atlantic (2012, background): “…Bruckner 2002), leading to their listing as threatened in the US under the Endangered Species Act in 2006 (Hogarth 2006) and as critically endangered in the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species in 2008 (Aronson et al. 2008, Carpenter et al. 2008).”
Fish conservation in freshwater and marine realms: status, threats and management (2016, background): “As a consequence of widespread coral loss over the 1998 ENSO event, up to a third of reef-building corals have declined in cover to the point where they were categorized in one of the IUCN Red List threatened categories (Carpenter et al., 2008).”