Coral reef baselines: how much macroalgae is natural?
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Ecology, Environmental Sciences, Marine Biology
- Keywords
- coral cover, baseline, seaweed, coral reef, macroalgae, macroalgal cover, phase shift, trophic cascade
- Licence
- This is an open access article, free of all copyright, made available under the Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication. This work may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose.
- Cite this article
- 2013. Coral reef baselines: how much macroalgae is natural? PeerJ PrePrints 1:e19v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.19v1
Abstract
Identifying the baseline or natural state of an ecosystem is a critical step in effective conservation and restoration. Like most marine ecosystems, coral reefs are being degraded by human activities: corals and fish have declined in abundance and seaweeds, or macroalgae, have become more prevalent. The challenge for resource managers is to reverse these trends, but by how much? Based on surveys of Caribbean reefs in the 1970s, most reef scientists believe that the average cover of seaweed was very low in the natural state. On the other hand, evidence from remote Pacific reefs, ecological theory, and impacts of over-harvesting in other systems all suggest that, historically, macroalgal biomass may have been higher than assumed. Uncertainties about the natural state of coral reefs illustrate the difficulty of determining the baseline condition of even well-studied systems.
Supplemental Information
Prior Reviews
Reviews of Bruno et al. (2013) from six journals listed in reverse chronological order.