Declínio dos corais

Declínio do coral e sua relação com a redução das populações de peixes na Papua Nova Guiné. (Jones et al. 2004[1])

[Por Henrique Cortez, do EcoDebate] Os cientistas John Bruno e Elizabeth Selig, pesquisadores da Universidade da Carolina do Norte, publicaram na revista eletrônica “PLoS ONE”, suas observações e análises estatísticas de 2667 bancos de corais. Os resultados mostram que os recifes de corais diminuíram, até 2004, a uma taxa média anual de 2%, – valor que é o cinco vezes maior que a diminuição das florestas tropicais do mundo. O fenômeno pode ter várias causas, inclusive aumento da temperatura dos oceanos, causado pelo aquecimento global, como publicado anteriormente em outras pesquisas.

O crescente declínio dos recifes de coral é uma severa ameaça aos ecossistemas marinhos, contribuindo, ao lado da sobrepesca, para a vertiginosa redução dos estoques pesqueiros.

O pesquisador John Bruno, em artigo anterior [Coral reefs and climate change] já havia analisado a relação entre as mudanças climáticas e a morte dos corais, indicando as severas consequencias do aquecimento global para os ecossistemas marinhos.

Bruno, John (Lead Author); Mark McGinley (Topic Editor). 2008. “Coral reefs and climate change.” In: Encyclopedia of Earth. Eds. Cutler J. Cleveland (Washington, D.C.: Environmental Information Coalition, National Council for Science and the Environment). [First published in the Encyclopedia of Earth December 19, 2007; Last revised August 26, 2008; Retrieved March 13, 2009].

O artigo “Regional Decline of Coral Cover in the Indo-Pacific: Timing, Extent, and Subregional Comparisons“, publicado na revista Plos ONE está disponível para acesso integral no formato HTML. Para acessar o artigo clique aqui.

Abaixo, para maiores informações, transcrevemos o abstract:

Regional Decline of Coral Cover in the Indo-Pacific: Timing, Extent, and Subregional Comparisons

John F. Bruno1*, Elizabeth R. Selig2

1 Department of Marine Sciences, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States of America, 2 Curriculum in Ecology and Department of Marine Sciences, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States of America
Abstract

Background

A number of factors have recently caused mass coral mortality events in all of the world’s tropical oceans. However, little is known about the timing, rate or spatial variability of the loss of reef-building corals, especially in the Indo-Pacific, which contains 75% of the world’s coral reefs.

Methodology/Principle Findings

We compiled and analyzed a coral cover database of 6001 quantitative surveys of 2667 Indo-Pacific coral reefs performed between 1968 and 2004. Surveys conducted during 2003 indicated that coral cover averaged only 22.1% (95% CI: 20.7, 23.4) and just 7 of 390 reefs surveyed that year had coral cover >60%. Estimated yearly coral cover loss based on annually pooled survey data was approximately 1% over the last twenty years and 2% between 1997 and 2003 (or 3,168 km2 per year). The annual loss based on repeated measures regression analysis of a subset of reefs that were monitored for multiple years from 1997 to 2004 was 0.72 % (n = 476 reefs, 95% CI: 0.36, 1.08).

Conclusions/Significance

The rate and extent of coral loss in the Indo-Pacific are greater than expected. Coral cover was also surprisingly uniform among subregions and declined decades earlier than previously assumed, even on some of the Pacific’s most intensely managed reefs. These results have significant implications for policy makers and resource managers as they search for successful models to reverse coral loss.

Citation: Bruno JF, Selig ER (2007) Regional Decline of Coral Cover in the Indo-Pacific: Timing, Extent, and Subregional Comparisons. PLoS ONE 2(8): e711. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0000711

Academic Editor: Rob Freckleton, University of Sheffield, United Kingdom

Received: January 30, 2007; Accepted: May 29, 2007; Published: August 8, 2007

Copyright: © 2007 Bruno, Selig. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Funding: This research was funded in part by the National Science Foundation (OCE-0326983 to J.F.B.), an EPA Star Fellowship to E.R.S, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: jbruno{at}unc.edu

[EcoDebate, 14/03/2009]

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