Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2024
DOI
10.1371/journal.pone.0309354
Publication Title
PLoS One
Volume
19
Issue
11
Pages
e0309354 (1-23)
Abstract
Atlantic reef-building corals and coral reefs continue to experience extensive decline due to increased stressors related to climate change, disease, pollution, and numerous anthropogenic threats. To understand the impact of ocean warming and reef loss on the estimated extinction risk of shallow water Atlantic reef-building scleractinians and milleporids, all 85 valid species were reassessed under the IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria, updating the previous Red List assessment of Atlantic corals published in 2008. For the present assessment, individual species declines were estimated based on the modeled coral cover loss (1989–2019) and projected onset of annual severe bleaching events (2020–2050) across the Atlantic. Species traits were used to scale species’ relative vulnerability to the modeled cover declines and forecasted bleaching events. The updated assessments place 45.88%–54.12% of Atlantic shallow water corals at an elevated extinction risk compared to the previous assessments conducted in 2008 (15.19%–40.51%). However, coral cover loss estimates indicate an improvement in reef coverage compared to the historic time-series used for the 2008 assessments. Based on this, we infer that, although remaining dangerously high, the rate of Atlantic reef coral cover decline has surprisingly slowed in recent decades. However, based on modeled projections of sea-surface temperature that predict the onset of annual severe bleaching events within the next 30 years, we listed 26 (out of 85) species as Critically Endangered in the IUCN Red List. Each of these species had previously been listed under a lower threatened category and this result alone highlights the severe threat future bleaching events pose to coral survival and the reef ecosystems they support.
Rights
© 2024 Gutierrez et al.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Original Publication Citation
Gutierrez, L., Polidoro, B., Obura, D., Cabada-Blanco, F., Linardich, C., Pettersson, E., Pearce-Kelly, P., Kemppinen, K., Alvarado, J. J., Alvarez-Filip, L., Banaszak, A., Casado de Amezua, P., Crabbe, J., Croquer, A., Feingold, J., Goergen, E., Goffredo, S., Hoeksema, B., Huang, D.,…Wilson, B. (2024). Half of Atlantic reef-building corals at elevated risk of extinction due to climate change and other threats. PLoS One, 19(11), 1-23, Article e0309354. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0309354
Repository Citation
Gutierrez, Luis; Polidoro, Beth; Obura, David; Cabada-Blanco, Francoise; Linardich, Christi; Pettersson, Emma; Pearce-Kelly, Paul; Kemppinen, Krista; Alvarado, Juan Jose; Alvarez-Filip, Lorenzo; Banaszak, Anastazia; Casado de Amezua, Pilar; Crabbe, James; Croquer, Aldo; Feingold, Joshua; Goergen, Elizabeth; Goffredo, Stefano; Hoeksema, Bert; Huang, Danwei; Kennedy, Emma; Kersting, Diego; Kitahara, Marcelo; Kružić, Petar; Miller, Margaret; Nunes, Flavia; Quimbayo, Juan Pablo; Rivera-Sosa, Andrea; Rodríguez-Martínez, Rosa; Santodomingo, Nadia; Sweet, Michael; Vermeij, Mark; Villamizar, Estrella; Aeby, Greta; Alliji, Khatija; Bayley, Daniel; Couce, Elena; Cowburn, Benjamin; Nuñez Lendo, C. Isabel; Porter, Sean; Samimi-Namin, Kaveh; Shlesinger, Tom; and Wilson, Bryan, "Half of Atlantic Reef-Building Corals at Elevated Risk of Extinction Due to Climate Change and Other Threats" (2024). Biological Sciences Faculty Publications. 610.
https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/biology_fac_pubs/610
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