one group of scientists is suggesting. Peter D. Roopnarine et al., “Impact of the Extinct Megaherbivore Steller’s Sea Cow (Hydrodamalis gigas) on Kelp Forest Resilience,” Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 10 (2022): 983558, https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2022.983558.
Subsequent analysis confirmed. Armineh Barkhordarian et al., “Recent Marine Heatwaves in the North Pacific Warming Pool Can Be Attributed to Rising Atmospheric Levels of Greenhouse Gases,” Communications Earth and Environment 3 (2022): 131, https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-022-00461-2.
At the centre of this disaster is the Amazon Basin. Brian E. Lapointe et al., “Nutrient Content and Stoichiometry of Pelagic Sargassum Reflects Increasing Nitrogen Availability in the Atlantic Basin,” Nature Communications 12 (2021): 3060, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-23135-7.
programme to actively replant. Robert J. Orth et al., “Restoration of Seagrass Habitat Leads to Rapid Recovery of Coastal Ecosystem Services,” Science Advances 6, no. 41 (2020): eabc6434, https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abc6434.
seagrass meadows likely store. James W. Fourqurean et al., “Seagrass Ecosystems as a Globally Significant Carbon Stock,” Nature Geoscience 5 (2012): 505–9, https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1477.
2022 study projecting the future of seagrass. Christina A. Buelow et al., “Ambitious Global Targets for Mangrove and Seagrass Recovery,” Current Biology 32, no. 7 (2022): 1641–49, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2022.02.013.
1 per cent of these semiaquatic tropical forests. Liza Goldberg et al., “Global Declines in Human-Driven Mangrove Loss,” Global Change Biology 26 (2020): 5844–55, https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.15275.
mangrove forests lock up. Daniel R. Richards et al., “Quantifying Net Loss of Global Mangrove Carbon Stocks from 20 Years of Land Cover Change,” Nature Communications 11 (2020): 4260, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-18118-z.
Operation Crayweed was born. Operation Crayweed: Restoring Sydney’s Underwater Forests, http://www.operationcrayweed.com/.
CHAPTER 9
Within six months, many coral colonies. Melanie D. Mcfield, “Coral Response during and after Mass Bleaching in Belize,” Bulletin of Marine Science 64, no. 1 (1999): 155–72.
Reefs are central to the lives. Amy Sing Wong et al., “An Assessment of People Living by Coral Reefs over Space and Time,” Global Change Biology 28, no. 23 (2022): 7139–53, https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.16391.
There are still coral reefs in Belize. Catherine Alves et al., “Twenty Years of Change in Benthic Communities across the Belizean Barrier Reef,” PLoS One 17, no. 1 (2022): e0249155, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249155.
Across the region, many coral reefs. Jeremy Jackson et al. (eds.), Status and Trends of Caribbean Coral Reefs: 1970–2012 (Gland, Switzerland: Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network, IUCN, 2014).
In 1998, mass bleaching. The 8 per cent figure comes from a forty-year data set of underwater surveys on reefs, consisting of more than two million observations from over twelve thousand sites in seventy-three reef-bearing countries around the world. See David Souter et al. (eds.), Status of Coral Reefs of the World: 2020 Report (n.p.: Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network and International Coral Reef Initiative, 2020), https://doi.org/10.59387/WOTJ9184.
14 per cent of stony corals worldwide were killed. This is likely an underestimate because the most damaged reefs, with the lowest coral cover, are not always the ones people choose to survey. Another study estimates that fully half of the world’s corals have died since 1950, although those figures are contentious among some experts, because they rely on a few early data points of coral cover that may not be as accurate or comparable to later surveys. See Tyler D. Eddy et al., “Global Decline in Capacity of Coral Reefs to Provide Ecosystem Services,” One Earth 4, no. 9 (2021): 1278–85, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2021.08.016.
This century, coral cover. Sterling B. Tebbett et al., “Benthic Composition Changes on Coral Reefs at Global Scales,” Nature Ecology and Evolution 7 (2023): 71–81, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-022-01937-2.
Heat-stressed corals are more vulnerable. So far, scientists know of forty coral diseases that affect two hundred species across the world’s tropical reefs, but they still understand little about what causes them, how they’re transmitted, and what, if anything, can be done to protect reefs and help sick corals recover. See Juliano Morais et al., “A Global Synthesis of the Current Knowledge on the Taxonomic and Geographic Distribution of Major Coral Diseases,” Environmental Advances 8 (2022): 100231, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envadv.2022.1002312.
Warming seas are losing oxygen. Ariel K. Pezner et al., “Increasing Hypoxia on Global Coral Reefs under Ocean Warming,” Nature Climate Change 13 (2023): 403–9, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-023-01619-2.
Mass coral bleaching kills corals. Terry P. Hughes et al., “Spatial and Temporal Patterns of Mass Bleaching of Corals in the Anthropocene,” Science 359, no. 6371 (2018): 80–83, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aan8048.
scientists in Australia have built. Sophie G. Dove et al., “Ocean Warming and Acidification Uncouple Calcification from Calcifier Biomass Which Accelerates Coral Reef Decline,” Communications Earth and Environment 1 (2020): 55, https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-020-00054-x.
It could be as soon as 2030. Kay L. Davis et al., “Global Coral Reef Ecosystems Exhibit Declining Calcification and Increasing Primary Productivity,” Communications Earth and Environment 2 (2021): 105, https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-021-00168-w.
Surveys in 2022 recorded. AIMS Long-Term Monitoring Program, Annual Summary Report of Coral Reef Condition 2020/2021 (n.p.: Australian Institute of Marine Science, 2021), https://www.aims.gov.au/reef-monitoring/gbr-condition-summary-2020-2021.
seven years later … there was little to no coral bleaching. Liam Lachs et al., “Emergent Increase in Coral Thermal Tolerance Reduces Mass Bleaching under Climate Change,” Nature Communications 14 (2023): 4939, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-40601-6.
On reefs in Panama, Pocillopora. Ana M. Palacio-Castro et al., “Increased Dominance of Heat-Tolerant Symbionts Creates Resilient Coral Reefs in Near-Term Ocean Warming,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 120, no. 8 (2023): e2202388120, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2202388120.
Globally, since the 1990s. Shannon Sully et al., “A Global Analysis of Coral Bleaching over the Past Two Decades,” Nature Communications 10 (2019): 1264, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-09238-2.
Twenty years’ worth of underwater surveys. Shannon Sully et al., “Present and Future Bright and Dark Spots for Coral Reefs through Climate Change,” Global Change Biology 28, no. 15 (2022): 4509–22, https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.16083.
Bright spots are dotted. Ibid.
Globally, around 80 per cent. Richard L. Pyle and Joshua M. Copus, “Mesophotic Coral Ecosystems: Introduction and Overview,” in Mesophotic Coral Ecosystems, ed. Yossi Loya et al., Coral Reefs of the World 12 (Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2019), 3–27, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92735-0_1.
every hour a rebreather diver. Hudson T. Pinheiro et al., “Deep Reef Fishes in the World’s Epicenter of Marine Biodiversity,” Coral Reefs 38 (2019): 985–95, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00338-019-01825-5.
rose-veiled fairy wrasse. Yi-Kai Tea et al., “Cirrhilabrus finifenmaa (Teleostei, Labridae), a New Species of Fairy Wrasse from the Maldives, with Comments on the Taxonomic Identity of C. rubrisquamis and C. wakanda,” ZooKeys 1088 (2022): 65–80, https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1088.78139.
latigo fairy wrasse. Yi-Kai Tea et al., “A New Species of Fairy Wrasse (Teleostei: Labridae: Cirrhilabrus) from Mesophotic Coral Ecosystems of the Verde Island Passage, Philippines,” Copeia 108, no. 1 (2020): 91–102, https://doi.org/10.1643/CI-19-297.
Obama’s basslet. Richard L. Pyle et al., “Tosanoides obama, a New Basslet (Perciformes, Percoidei, Serranidae) from Deep Coral Reefs in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands,” ZooKeys 641 (2016): 165–81, https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.641.11500.
surveys in American Samoa. Anthony D. Montgomery et al., “Community Similarity and Species Overlap between Habitats Provide Insight into the Deep Reef Refuge Hypothesis,” Scientific Reports 11 (2021): 23787, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-03128-8.
More of them now live in mesophotic reefs. Steven J. Lindfield et al., “Mesophotic Depths as Refuge Areas for Fishery-Targeted Species on Coral Reefs,” Coral Reefs 35 (2016): 125–37, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00338-015-1386-8.
Scientists who dive frequently in the mesophotic. Nicolas Loiseau et al., “Mesophotic Reefs Are Not Refugia for Neither Taxonomic nor Functional Diversity of Reef Fishes,” Coral Reefs 42 (2023): 63–75, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00338-022-02311-1; Luiz A. Rocha et al., “Mesophotic Coral Ecosystems Are Threatened and Ecologically Distinct from Shallow Water Reefs,” Science 361, no. 6399 (2018): 281–84, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaq1614; Paris Stefanoudis et al., “Low Connectivity between Shallow, Mesophotic and Rariphotic Zone Benthos,” Royal Society Open Science 6, no. 9 (2019): 190958, http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.190958.
Plastic debris builds up. Hudson T. Pinheiro et al., “Plastic Pollution on the World’s Coral Reefs,” Nature 619 (2023): 311–16, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06113-5.
A two-decade study in Belize. Catherine Alves et al., “Twenty Years of Change in Benthic Communities across the Belizean Barrier Reef,” PLoS One 17, no. 1 (2022): e0249155, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249155.
Several other studies have similarly found. John F. Bruno et al., “Climate Change, Coral Loss, and the Curious Case of the Parrotfish Paradigm: Why Don’t Marine Protected Areas Improve Reef Resilience?,” Annual Review of Marine Science 11 (2019): 307–34, https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-marine-010318-095300; Jack V. Johnson et al., “Marine Protected Areas Do Not Buffer Corals from Bleaching under Global Warming,” BMC Ecology and Evolution 22 (2022): 58, https://doi.org/10.1186/s12862-022-02011-y.
Close to 90 per cent. Catherine E. I. Head et al., “Coral Bleaching Impacts from Back-to-Back 2015–2016 Thermal Anomalies in the Remote Central Indian Ocean,” Coral Reefs 38 (2019): 605–18, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00338-019-01821-9.
