Assessing population changes of historically overexploited black corals (Order: Antipatharia) in Cozumel, Mexico

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1 Conservation Leadership Programme, Cambridge, United Kingdom
2 Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
3 Ocean Conservation, World Wildlife Fund - US, Washington, D.C., United States
DOI
10.7287/peerj.preprints.3499v1
Published
Accepted
Subject Areas
Natural Resource Management, Environmental Impacts
Keywords
Mesophotic Coral Ecosystem, Antipatharian, Precious Coral, Black Coral, Harvest Management, Antipathes caribbeana, Plumapathes pennacea, Caribbean, Cozumel Mexico, Jewellery Industry
Copyright
© 2017 Gress et al.
Licence
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
Cite this article
Gress E, Andradi-Brown DA. 2017. Assessing population changes of historically overexploited black corals (Order: Antipatharia) in Cozumel, Mexico. PeerJ Preprints 5:e3499v1

Abstract

Black corals (Antipatharians) play a crucial structural and ecological role on many mesophotic coral ecosystems (MCEs; reefs 30-150 m depth). In Mexico, black corals are harvested for the jewellery industry, which has historically led to populations depletion. Harvesting began in the early 1960s, and was concentrated around Cozumel Island until 1995. Here we compare populations between 1998 and 2016 for the two black coral species targeted by the jewellery industry. We found that densities of Plumapathes pennacea in 2016 are substantially lower than in 1998. However, the 2016 P. pennacea population has shifted to be dominated by larger colonies, suggesting disproportionate juvenile mortality or recruitment failure. No change in population density or colony size of Antipathes caribbeana was detected between 1998 and 2016. We advocate for the adequate protection of black corals in Mexico, and for the government to ensure sustainability of the harvesting before issuing future permits.

Author Comment

This is a preprint submission to PeerJ Preprints.