[Coral-List] Caribbean acroporid oases

Pawlik, Joseph pawlikj at uncw.edu
Thu Apr 30 12:17:32 UTC 2020


Hi all,

Considering this week's report that Caribbean acroporid corals were already in decline in the 1950s and 60s (Cramer et al. 2020, Sci Advances) before the truly devastating widespread losses of the late 1980s and 90s, it is interesting that they still remain in little oases.
Here's a video from Carrie Bow Cay, Belize, from just last month (right before the COVID lock down):
https://youtu.be/-LVYy-K-8-Q
And further South, a remarkable patch off Roatan (from 2016, not sure how it is doing now):
https://youtu.be/FHcUmUry8Vk

These are, of course, the exceptions - compare them to what the Florida Keys looked like in 1987 (thanks to Dr. Zlatarski!).
https://youtu.be/LIbmsHmuxWk
https://youtu.be/QV-XJZdPbk0

Of course, the foregoing are all of very shallow reefs, <5m depth.
The situation for Caribbean fore-reefs these days is really dire:
https://youtu.be/11ywGm33wnM

Stay well,

Joe

**************************************************************
Joseph R. Pawlik
Frank Hawkins Kenan Distinguished Professor of Marine Biology
Dept. of Biology and Marine Biology
UNCW Center for Marine Science
5600 Marvin K Moss Lane
Wilmington, NC  28409
Office:(910)962-2377; Cell:(910)232-3579
Website: http://people.uncw.edu/pawlikj/index.html
PDFs: http://people.uncw.edu/pawlikj/pubs2.html
Video Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/skndiver011
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