Jackson2013-Status and Trendsof Caribbean Coral Reefs

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IMPLICATIONS FOR MANAGEMENT The results of this study contradict much of the conventional wisdom about the importance of ocean warming, disease, and hurricanes on coral reefs and emphasize the critical importance of historical perspective for coral reef management and conservation. The threats of climate change and ocean acidification loom ominously for the future, but overfishing and the resulting increase in macroalgae have been the major drivers of the catastrophic decline of Caribbean reefs up until today. What this means is that smart decisions and actions on a local basis can make an enormous difference for the wellbeing of corals reefs and the people and enterprises that depend upon them. Thus, three major recommendations emerge from this report: 1. Ban all trap fishing, spearfishing and any other fishing of parrotfish in coral reefs and adjacent environments and provide dignified alternative livelihoods for the fishers affected. 2. Simplify and standardize monitoring of Caribbean reefs and make the results available on an annual basis to facilitate adaptive management. A very small number of key variables would suffice including: percent cover of corals and macroalgae, biomass of large parrotfish and abundance of Diadema , coral recruitment measured as the density of small colonies < 40 mm, incidence of coral disease, and water transparency measured by a secchi disk. 3. Foster communication and exchange of information so that local managers can benefit from the experiences of others elsewhere. STATUS AND TRENDS OF CARIBBEAN CORAL REEFS: 1969-2012 17
PART I: OVERVIEW AND SYNTHESIS FOR THE WIDER CARIBBEAN REGION Jeremy BC Jackson, Mary K Donovan, Katie L Cramer, Vivian Lam, Rolf PM Bak, Iliana Chollett, Sean R Connolly, Jorge Cortés, Phil Dustan, Mark C Eakin, Alan M Friedlander, Terry Hughes, Benjamin J Greenstein, Scott F Heron, Jeff Miller, Peter Mumby, John M Pandolfi, Caroline S Rogers, Robert Steneck, Ernesto Weil, Pedro M Alcolado, Jahson B Alemu I, William S Alevizon, Jesús Ernesto Arias-González, Andrea Atkinson, David L Ballantine, Carolina Bastidas, Claude Bouchon, Yolande Bouchon-Navaro, Steve Box, Angelique Brathwaite, John F Bruno, Chris Caldow, Robert C Carpenter, Bernadette H Charpentier, Mark Chiappone, Rodolfo Claro, Aldo Cróquer, Adolphe O Debrot, Peter Edmunds, Douglas Fenner, Ana Fonseca, Marcia C Ford, Kirah Forman, Graham E Forrester, Joaquín R Garza-Pérez, Peter MH Gayle, Gabriel D Grimsditch, Hector M Guzmán, Alastair R Harborne, Marah J Hardt, Mark Hixon, Joshua Idjadi, Walter Jaap, Christopher FG Jeffrey, Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, Eric Jordán-Dahlgren, Karen Koltes, Judith C Lang, Yossi Loya, Isaias Majil, Carrie Manfrino, Jean-Philippe Maréchal, Croy MR McCoy, Melanie D McField, Steven Miller, Thaddeus Murdoch, Ivan Nagelkerken, Richard Nemeth, Maggy M Nugues, Hazel A Oxenford, Gustavo Paredes, Joanna M Pitt, Nicholas VC Polunin, Pedro Portillo, Héctor Bonilla Reyes, Rosa E Rodríguez-Martínez, Alberto Rodriguez-Ramirez, Benjamin I Ruttenberg, Rob Ruzicka, Stuart Sandin, Myra J Shulman, Struan R Smith, Tyler B Smith, Brigitte Sommer, Chris Stallings, Rubén E Torres, John W Tunnell, Jr., Mark JA Vermeij, Ivor D Williams, Jon D Witman Caribbean coral reef ecosystems are severely degraded due to human overfishing, pollution, climate change, and the synergies among them. Coral cover has declined by more than 80% since the 1970s (Fig. 1), virtually all the large fishes, sharks, and turtles are gone (Fig. 2), and the threats of global climate change loom increasingly ominously for the future (Fig. 3)(Hughes 1994; Jackson 1997; Aronson and Precht 2001; Jackson 2001; Gardner et al. 2003; Pandolfi et al. 2003; McClenachan 2008; Eakin et al. 2010). The severity of the situation has raised serious questions about the future of Caribbean reefs and indeed reefs worldwide (Knowlton 2001; Hughes et al. 2003, 2010; Bellwood et al. 2004, Pandolfi et al. 2005; Hoegh-Guldberg et al. 2007; Hughes et al. 2010). Nevertheless, there are reasons for hope based upon the remarkable abundance and resilience of corals at some remote Pacific island reefs that are protected from local impacts of overfishing and pollution (Friedlander and DeMartini 2002; Knowlton and Jackson 2008; Sandin et al. 2008; Pandolfi et al. 2011; Gilmour et al. 2013). Despite increased warming and coral bleaching throughout the Pacific, these reefs have recovered from past episodes of bleaching and still support extraordinarily abundant and resilient populations of fishes and corals. There are also reports of considerable variability in the condition of Caribbean reefs (Kramer 2003, Newman et al. 2006, Schutte et al. 2010) that is obscured by plotting a single line for reef condition over time, regardless of location, reef type, depth, environmental conditions, and human impact as in Fig. 1 (Gardner et al. 2003). For example, live coral cover is less than the reported Caribbean average of 10% in the 18 STATUS AND TRENDS OF CARIBBEAN CORAL REEFS: 1969-2012
Page 1 and 2: Status and Trends of Caribbean Cora
Page 3 and 4: Dedication: This book is dedicated
Page 5 and 6: Phase shifts ......................
Page 7 and 8: Introduction This is the 9th status
Page 9 and 10: Acknowledgments, Co-sponsors, and S
Page 11 and 12: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Jeremy Jackson
Page 13 and 14: STRATEGY AND SCOPE OF THE PRESENT R
Page 15 and 16: The greatest overall changes in cor
Page 17: heating events are surprisingly fla
Page 21 and 22: A B C FIGURE 2. Decline in the comp
Page 23 and 24: Sampling units are defined as follo
Page 25 and 26: Table 2. List of coral reef locatio
Page 27 and 28: Country or Territory Location # of
Page 29 and 30: Compilation of the great majority o
Page 31 and 32: Two other major survey programs beg
Page 33 and 34: mean of 14.3 % (+2.0, -1.8). This l
Page 35 and 36: Changes in coral cover were similar
Page 37 and 38: FIGURE 13. Large-scale shifts from
Page 39 and 40: TABLE 5. Changes in coral and macro
Page 41 and 42: The disparate reef histories in Fig
Page 43 and 44: 2b. ECOLOGICAL EXTINCTION OF FORMER
Page 45 and 46: Decline of Diadema antillarum Diade
Page 47 and 48: Table 7. Numbers of visitors and re
Page 49 and 50: Caribbean, where the mass mortality
Page 51 and 52: FIGURE 26. Percent coral cover in r
Page 53 and 54: or avoidance behavior by larvae and
Page 55 and 56: of disease and coral death. These a
Page 57 and 58: contrast, reefs on the Belize Centr
Page 59 and 60: TABLE 9. Average secchi disk depths
Page 61 and 62: Label Country Location DHW 1998 DHW
Page 63 and 64: 2010 are surprisingly flat (Fig. 33
Page 65 and 66: Pacific lionfish Pterois volitans t
Page 67 and 68: Bruno et al. 2009). However, our re
Page 69 and 70:
is, for example, for degree heating
Page 71 and 72:
1. Ban all trap fishing, spearfishi
Page 73 and 74:
Chollett I, Mumby PJ, Müller-Karge
Page 75 and 76:
CH, Steneck RS, Tegner MJ, Warner R
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Rasher DB, Stout EP, Engel S, Kuban
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Appendices Appendix I Field Field O
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80 STATUS AND TRENDS OF CARIBBEAN C
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Page 87 and 88:
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Page 91 and 92:
Page 93 and 94:
Page 95 and 96:
Page 97 and 98:
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Location Reference Data Contributor
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Davis GE (1982) A century of natura
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Roos PJ (1964) The distribution of
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Steneck RS (1994) Is herbivore loss
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PART II: REPORTS FOR INDIVIDUAL COU
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COUNTRIES, STATES, AND TERRITORIES
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Map Code Contributor Time Period Ye
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7 Nagelkerkan, Bimini 2006 1 X Ivan
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Cheung WWL, Sadovy de Mitcheson Y (
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BARBADOS Coauthors: Caroline Bissad
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2003-present: Sporadic outbreaks of
Page 128 and 129:
BELIZE Coauthors: Nadia Bood, John
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Fig. 4.3 Average percent cover of m
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24 Dustan P, King A, Treml E, Allin
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Fig. 5.2 Average percent cover of l
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Fricke H, Meischner D (1985) Depth
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Map Code Contributor Location Time
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10 Kramer PA, Bischof B.G. (2003) A
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Fig. 7.2 Average percent cover of l
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CAYMAN ISLANDS Coauthors: Timothy A
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Fig. 8.3 Diadema density and biomas
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COLOMBIA Coauthors: Alan Friedlande
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1980s-1990: Macrolagal and coral di
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Published Data Sources 1 Coral A, C
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CUBA Coauthors: Pedro M. Alcolado,
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2005: Hurricane Dennis (Category 4)
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CURAÇAO Coauthors: Rolf Bak, Dolfi
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Fig. 12.3 Average density of Diadem
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18 Bruckner AW, Bruckner RJ (2003)
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Fig. 14.2 Average percent cover of
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Geraldes FX, Vega M, Ramírez H, Ro
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General Literature Borger JL, Stein
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Timeline 1878: Black water event ki
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25 Forcucci D (1994) Population den
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Published Data Sources 1 Bright TJ,
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Page 184 and 185:
Chevaillier P (1990) Méthodes d’
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GUATEMALA Coauthors: Ana Giró, Mel
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Gutiérrez L (2007) Informe de avan
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JAMAICA Coauthors: Karl Aiken, Robe
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Munro JL, Williams DM (1985) Assess
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Timeline 11,000 CE: Human remains o
Page 204 and 205:
Rodríguez-Martínez RE, Banaszak A
Page 206 and 207:
April 2006: Multibeam mapping of is
Page 208 and 209:
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Map Contributor Location Time Perio
Page 212 and 213:
6 Guzmán HM, Guevara CA (2001) Cor
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from disease and bleaching. Disease
Page 218 and 219:
Timeline: 1987: Saba Marine Environ
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Lloyd G (2007) Review of the Policy
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TURKS & CAICOS ISLANDS Coauthors: B
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US VIRGIN ISLANDS Coauthors: Richar
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Beets J, Friedlander AM (1999) Eval
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39 Hay ME (1984) Patterns of fish a
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Bastidas C, Cróquer A, Zubillaga A
Page 244:
Rodríguez-Ramírez A, Bastidas C,
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