Bright spots among the world's coral reefs.

Bright spots among the world's coral reefs. Nature. 2016 Jun 15; Authors: Cinner JE, Huchery C, MacNeil MA, Graham NA, McClanahan TR, Maina J, Maire E, Kittinger JN, Hicks CC, Mora C, Allison EH, D'Agata S, Hoey A, Feary DA, Crowder L, Williams ID, Kulbicki M, Vigliola L, Wantiez L, Edgar G, Stuart-Smith RD, Sandin SA, Green AL, Hardt MJ, Beger M, Friedlander A, Campbell SJ, Holmes KE, Wilson SK, Brokovich E, Brooks AJ, Cruz-Motta JJ, Booth DJ, Chabanet P, Gough C, Tupper M, Ferse SC, Sumaila UR, Mouillot D Abstract Ongoing declines in the structure and function of the world's coral reefs require novel approaches to sustain these ecosystems and the millions of people who depend on them. A presently unexplored approach that draws on theory and practice in human health and rural development is to systematically identify and learn from the 'outliers'-places where ecosystems are substantially better ('bright spots') or worse ('dark spots') than expected, given the environmental conditions and socioeconomic drivers they are exposed to. Here we compile data from more than 2,500 reefs worldwide and develop a Bayesian hierarchical model to generate expectations of how standing stocks of reef fish biomass are related to 18 socioeconomic drivers and environmental conditions. We identify 15 bright spots and 35 dark spots among our global survey of coral reefs, defined as sites that have biomass levels more than two standard deviations from expe...
Source: Rural Remote Health - Category: Rural Health Authors: Tags: Nature Source Type: research