Shifting baselines, local impacts, and global change on coral reefs

Abstract

The striking health of remote coral reefs provides clear evidence that protection from local overfishing and pollution can help mitigate the impacts of global warming.

Figure 1. Healthy Reefs, Dying Reefs, and Corals in Bocas del Toro, Panama

(A) Example of a healthy reef with abundant living coral. (B) Example of a reef in which most coral has died and been replaced by macroalgae. (C) Bleached and healthy coral colonies; both are alive but the bleached colony has lost its symbiotic algae. (D) Coral suffering from disease and with encroaching macroalgae. See Sandin and colleagues [39] for analogous images from the Northern Line Islands. (Photo credit: David Kline, Centre for Marine Studies, University of Queensland, Australia).

Figure 2. Inferred Relationships between Local Human Disturbance and Various Ecosystem Attributes, as Evidenced by Studies Reviewed