[Coral-List] FW: Coral species extinction risk

Thu Feb 17 06:16:07 UTC 2022

Dear Coral List community,

While this is an intriguing back and forth exchange, if coral reefs are an
endangered ecosystem, based on future projections of climate change
scenarios, doesn't that make all coral species endangered?   As far as in
principle, does it really matter which one is first in line to fall off the
cliff into oblivion?

If you want to argue this over a cup of coffee, that is one thing, but be
careful about what you publish, and the implications of proclaiming
anything positive or hopeful about the short term that causes us to forget
the inevitable long term- we must consider 100-200 years into the future as
if it were next year.  We are dealing with an existential crisis for coral
reefs, all coral reef species are in danger.

The last thing we need is the press picking up on dissention in the ranks
and loudly proclaiming: "Risk to coral species from climate change
over-estimated!"

Whatever the global prognosis, local coral species extinction has already
occurred on numerous reef sites, in spite of past abundance.  And on still
other reefs, coral species have gone from common to rare- with reproduction
and recruitment process failing, contributing to further decline.
Ecological extinction and reproductive failure comes well before biological
extinction. The coral reefs that are declining in the face of the heat
waves and that are not recovering, have become the leading edge of what
many of us believe will become a systemwide collapse of coral reefs just
about everywhere.

Of course, a definitive ranking of extinction vulnerability would matter to
those of us actively working to prevent the demise of particular coral
species, helping us choose which species to work with to restore and the
like. Unfortunately, there are few such tools, neither is there a widely
accepted or systematic strategy to fight the demise of coral species due to
climate change overall (we are working on that).  So far it appears to be
mostly an "every man for himself" situation, with no real agreement on what
direction to take.  While there should be a declaration of war on coral
demise due to climate change, unfortunately there is not.  The "50 reefs
initiative" seems like a prudent strategy, except for the fact that it
abandons the front lines of what should become a strategic war on coral
reef collapse. These localized extinctions on the abandoned frontlines can
tell us which species are the most vulnerable and which are the least
vulnerable, even more so if we have good data on what was there before and
after.  But it is a bit too late for some places.  Now I walk along the
beaches of Kiritimati Atoll, picking my way carefully among the large flat
plates of long-dead tabulate coral colonies piled high on the shore, corals
skeletons so abundant that they are still used to build the walls of
buildings.  I lament that I can not find a single living tabulate Acropora
colony in the waters of the Atoll.  But I celebrated, when after three
years of searching, I finally discovered a single population of staghorn A.
robusta coral- and not just one genotype, but three! - giving us hope in
restoring the species!  So is this the future we are facing?  Is this is
what it will be like in a few generations on most other shores?

Only recently did the criticisms and attacks on restoration mostly abate.
I was at the forefront of that too- LOL. When I heard of the horrific
Caribbean Acropora decline, I went.... and was the first to begin working
with Acropora cervicornis restoration in 1993.  That species was a
no-brainer because it had become rare, and was still declining, and because
it was so important ecologically and geologically to Caribbean reefs and as
fish habitat to the communities.  All sexual reproduction and larval
recruitment seemed to have stopped, and the remaining populations were all
that we had as far as genetic stock, and continuing to decline.  Only later
was the species added to the Red list and declared endangered.

Coral reef restoration has been somewhat mislabeled/ misunderstood- to me
it has always been more about securing remaining genotypes of declining
coral species and restoring their biomass and then their sexual
reproduction, rather than focusing on the numbers planted or square meters
covered.  It was about stabilizing the species and preventing further
demise of the species, and hoping that natural processes would kick back
in, so that the species could recover it's abundance through natural
processes.  In more recent years, restoration has become more about
bleaching resistance and local translocation of corals from hotter to
nurseries and out-planting sites located on cooler reefs nearby, in an
attempt to relieve heat stress on the corals, to give the corals a helping
hand with adapting to climate change.

My recommendation now to those wanting to get involved in coral restoration
is to focus on whatever coral species have become rare, to collect those
from whatever still remains in the most stressed nearshore waters, and to
not worry about the coral species less vulnerable to decline just yet
(Acropora yes!- Porites most species not yet).  Even if you can't put a
proper species name to a coral, still work with it, collect a bit from the
few remaining genotypes and go from there!  Sometimes, only when the corals
are growing side by side in your nurseries can you finally see clearly that
they look basically the same or more different from each other. Once you
have a handle on what sorts-out as species in your gene bank nurseries,
then you might call in the taxonomists!

Yes coral taxonomy is important, but will corals go the way of dinosaurs-
so that all we will have is dead skeletal specimens to discuss?  Will we
relax and fail to act in time because someone determined that we were
over-reacting, that globally many species would last longer than the more
pessimistic predictions?

My strong belief is that the best way to prevent coral species extinction
is to focus on preventing local extinction events. Act locally, and in
doing so, we might then also prevent the extinction of undescribed species
and hybrid species globally as well, and perhaps even reveal them for the
first time to science?  This is not false hope, this is not a quick fix- it
is a lot of work, and the way forward.

Regards to all,

Austin

Austin Bowden-Kerby, PhD
Corals for Conservation
P.O. Box 4649 Samabula, Fiji Islands

https://www.corals4conservation.org
https://www.facebook.com/C4Conservation
TEDx talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PRLJ8zDm0U
https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/emergency-response-to-massive-coral-bleaching/
<https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/emergency-response-to-massive-coral-bleaching/>

On Thu, Feb 17, 2022 at 12:49 PM Baird, Andrew via Coral-List <
coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> wrote:

> Dear Corallist
>
> In the interests of balance, and as one of the people that helped collect
> the original data in Dietzl et al 2021, please find below an open access
> link to Dietzel et al's response to Muir et al 2022.
>
> https://rdcu.be/cGZ1R
>
> I think the most important point in this discussion, alluded to by both
> sets of authors, is the taxonomic uncertainly in the Scleractinia.
>
> The taxonomic framework we were working with when we collected the data,
> starting in the last millennia, was fundamentally flawed and remains so
> today. This does not undermine Dietzel et al's (2021) conclusion that there
> is no correlation between abundance and Red List status for most species.
> Indeed, it highlights the fact that most coral species should be described
> as data deficient.
>
> The bottom line is that no one can correctly and consistently identify
> most corals to species in most parts of the world. Consequently, any
> management strategy that relies on the correct and consistent
> identification of coral species is also flawed. This includes the Red List
> and most of the relevant legislation in many countries including Australia.
>
> It will take at least a decade before we have a robust taxonomy for the
> order, even if people start to take coral taxonomy seriously, therefore we
> need alternatives to the Red List and Endangered Species Acts to
> effectively manage coral reefs.
>
> Professor Andrew Baird
> ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies
> James Cook University
> University Drive, Townsville Q 4811
> Bld 19, Room 120
> Tel. +61747814857
>
> Check out our website https://coralprojectphoenix.org/
>
>
>
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