[Coral-List] FW: Coral species extinction risk

[Douglas Fenner]

     If I remember correctly, Austin argued in a post that we shouldn't
wait to learn to better ID corals in order to save reefs.  We don't have
the luxury of extra time to wait for better taxonomy.  I often say to
people, "don't hesitate to do conservation work, don't wait, we don't have
that luxury."  Hughes and group have argued that it is foolish to spend
effort and money trying to save individual species instead of the
ecosystem, and they have published data that coral species do not include
lots of species that both have small ranges and low abundances ("double
jeopardy"), as do many terrestrial species.  As Austin wrote, in a sense,
aren't ALL corals threatened with extinction??  They certainly are said by
many to be threatened with decimation, and surely there are differences
about how threatened some are and how soon they will be threatened.  On the
other hand, endangered species can be a tool to get, or even force,
conservation action.  The US Endangered Species Act is a US law, while the
IUCN Red list is just an advisory document.  Violating the US Endangered
Species Act can land people in court and even cause the court to mete our
punishment if a jury of citizens votes to convict.  As a result, it has
real teeth, at least within the US.  AND, an explicit clause in it says
that 'the use of the act to force the conservation of ecosystems by listing
species that requires that ecosystem to survive, is an appropriate use of
the act.'  A good example in the US is the "spotted owl" which is
endangered and requires ancient or old-growth forests to nest and survive
as a species.  The US has allowed almost ALL old-growth forests to be
logged and destroyed and replaced with low-diversity tree farms.  The huge
trees in old growth forests are incredibly valuable, giant straight trees
with excellent wood.  So there was huge pressure, because of the money
involved, to cut those last old growth forests.  But courts ruled that
illegal, and stopped it dead in its tracks.  The old growth forests are
highly diverse, protecting many organisms, and are some of nature's great
wonders.  Endangered spotted owls and the application of that law, saved
the last old growth forests in the US Pacific Northwest (I come from there).
      So endangered species CAN, potentially, be a TOOL in the tool box,
along with others, that can be used to save entire ecosystems.  I have no
way of knowing whether it will be useful for saving coral reefs, though I
note that almost all of the coral species that have been listed under the
US Endangered Species Act have most of their range outside the US and
outside the jurisdiction of the US laws and courts.  On the other hand, it
does help stimulate attention and can help free up money and effort to help
outside the US, and other countries have laws as well.  If you're writing a
grant application, it might help if you can say that one of the species in
the ecosystem where you want funding to do conservation, has been listed as
endangered.  Note, that this does NOT necessarily take money away from
efforts to save coral reef ecosystems (I'm not arguing that funding is
infinite, rather that many other things are funded, and it is possible that
money from things that have nothing to do with coral reefs can be
repurposed to coral conservation, and thus that this does not necessarily
take money away from other coral conservation projects).  Rather, it can
sometimes attract MORE funding for projects trying to save whole
ecosystems, not just the endangered species.  I think since we are reaching
the level of outright desperation to save reefs, we should not throw away
any potentially useful tools in the toolbox.  And that includes the
majority of tools, which are NOT about endangered species.  We need
everything we can get on our side, we've been losing since this battle
began, and we cannot afford to keep losing in my view.
     I think another reason to save ecosystems and not just individual
species is that I think it is highly likely that in the future, many more
species are going to fall into the "endangered" category.  If we help all
species, then we help those as well as the ones already thought to be
endangered.
     I think Paul is right that taxonomy is like other parts of science
there are always improvements and progress and at times breakthroughs.  I
hope coral taxonomy gets much better.  I hope when there are improvements,
we can figure out what new names correspond to what in the older records.
To do that, we're going to need more documentation of the evidence of what
species we record.  I've pointed before to an insect study that pointed out
that few scientists leave a trail of evidence that others can use to try to
figure out if their species IDs are correct, or if not, what they were
referring to.  Photographs are important, as are voucher skeletons, as well
as stating what references were used for identification and who did the
identification, but it is also important to be transparent and make those
things publicly available to other researchers.  The alternative is to just
take on faith that everything was identified perfectly, when the chances of
that being so is nearly zero, because corals are so tough to ID.  I DO
agree with Andrew that coral taxonomy and thus ID is a mess presently, and
I hope it will be greatly improved, but I know that will take a mountain of
work.  What I'm concerned with is that we leave trails of evidence that can
be used to figure out what we're calling X corresponds to in the future,
improved taxonomy.  If we can't do that, then mountains of coral reef work
and the money and effort invested in them, will be worth a lot less.  There
are limits to it, for many field studies, too many coral colonies are
recorded for every one of them to be collected, and even one of each
species to be collected, or for all individuals to be photographed well
enough for ID, or even every species photographed for ID.  But surely we
can do better than what we're doing now.
     A note of conflict of interest: I do some contract work for US NOAA,
funded by funds for the Endangered Species Act, and I can help people on
any aspect of coral reefs that I'm able to help them with, NOT just
endangered species, because if I can help people who are trying to help
reefs, helping reefs will likely help the survival of endangered species.
I'm only part time, and it's only me, and I don't think what I say will
have any effect on what NOAA decides to fund in the future.  That's not my
purpose, but at least you now know someone could say I have a conflict of
interest on this topic.  But then, almost every scientist tries to talk up
the kind of research they do and get more funding.  So take what I say with
a grain of salt if you wish, I will not be offended.
     Cheers, Doug


Owens, B.  2018.  Most insect studies lack crucial species information.
Nature

Survey results suggest that a lot of entomology research could be
impossible to replicate.

2018

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-01541-0
<https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-01541-0%20>


Packer, L., Monckton, S. K., Onuferko, T. M. & Ferrari, R. R. Validating
taxonomic identifications in entomological research.  Insect Conservation
and Diversity 11, 1–12 (2018)


Hughes, T. P., Bellwood, D. R., Connolly, S. R., Cornell, H. V., Karlson,
R. H. 2014. Double

         jeopardy and extinction risk in corals and reef fishes. Current
Biology 24: 1-5.

On Fri, Feb 18, 2022 at 7:50 PM Paul Muir <paul.muir at qm.qld.gov.au> wrote:

> With all due respect, the taxonomy issue raised by Andrew is peripheral to
> the main points discussed in our comment on Deitzel et al. (2021): we
> conclude that there needs to be more species-level work on corals, not
> less.
>
> It is also premature and potentially dangerous to argue that the current
> coral taxonomy is fundamentally flawed, that no-one can identify corals to
> species and that any management/research that relies on species
> identification is flawed. Taxonomy across all taxa is constantly evolving
> and improving as new techniques and data arise: this has been going on
> since the "beginning" of the field in the 1700s. But, during that time
> biology and conservation continued by using the best taxonomy available for
> each group. We cannot all wait for a certain researcher to Ascend the Mount
> for a decade before they pass down absolute judgement!? And while the new
> molecular techniques hold great promise, they are not absolute and will in
> turn be subject to future change: for example, the use of very small sample
> sizes and a heavy reliance on post-processing and interpretation of the
> data mean that they will not be the "ten commandments" of coral taxonomy
> that some preach. We also cannot afford to wait: in 10 years many species
> are likely to be lost to local/regional/global extinctions. We urgently
> need to collect species-level data related to conservation status,
> susceptibility to bleaching, recovery etc. and begin species-based
> management to mitigate these extinctions. Ad Doug implied, these data are
> quite poor, at least for Indo-Pacific corals. We can do this now, while
> keeping an eye on potential future developments in coral taxonomy.
>
> PAUL MUIR
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Coral-List <coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov> on behalf of
> Douglas Fenner via Coral-List <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
> *Sent:* Thursday, February 17, 2022 10:23 PM
> *To:* Baird, Andrew <andrew.baird at jcu.edu.au>
> *Cc:* coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov <coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>
> *Subject:* Re: [Coral-List] FW: Coral species extinction risk
>
> Caution! This sender may be impersonating someone in your organization or
> a well known brand.
>
> Another paper concluding that morphological traits that correlate with the
> rate of extinction in Caribbean coral fossils do not correlate to Red List
> status:
>
> Raja et al. 2021. Morphological traits of reef corals predict extinction
> risk but not conservation status.
> https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/geb.13321
>
> I'd argue that most coral reef conservation programs and actions are not
> based on either the Red List or the US Endangered Species Act.
>
> I believe that a group is currently working on revising the Red Listings
> for corals.
>
> Cheers, Doug
>
> On Wed, Feb 16, 2022 at 1:52 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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> > Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> > https://coral.aoml.noaa.gov/mailman/listinfo/coral-list
> >
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