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Ernesto Weil

Bio: Ernesto Weil is an academic researcher from University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez. The author has contributed to research in topics: Coral reef & Coral. The author has an hindex of 43, co-authored 111 publications receiving 7981 citations. Previous affiliations of Ernesto Weil include University of Miami & Spanish National Research Council.


Papers
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Journal ArticleDOI
25 Jul 2008-Science
TL;DR: The Caribbean has the largest proportion of corals in high extinction risk categories, whereas the Coral Triangle has the highest proportion of species in all categories of elevated extinction risk.
Abstract: The conservation status of 845 zooxanthellate reef-building coral species was assessed by using International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List Criteria. Of the 704 species that could be assigned conservation status, 32.8% are in categories with elevated risk of extinction. Declines in abundance are associated with bleaching and diseases driven by elevated sea surface temperatures, with extinction risk further exacerbated by local-scale anthropogenic disturbances. The proportion of corals threatened with extinction has increased dramatically in recent decades and exceeds that of most terrestrial groups. The Caribbean has the largest proportion of corals in high extinction risk categories, whereas the Coral Triangle (western Pacific) has the highest proportion of species in all categories of elevated extinction risk. Our results emphasize the widespread plight of coral reefs and the urgent need to enact conservation measures.

1,272 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
15 Nov 2010-PLOS ONE
TL;DR: Comparison of satellite data against field surveys demonstrated a significant predictive relationship between accumulated heat stress (measured using NOAA Coral Reef Watch's Degree Heating Weeks) and bleaching intensity.
Abstract: Background: The rising temperature of the world's oceans has become a major threat to coral reefs globally as the severity and frequency of mass coral bleaching and mortality events increase. In 2005, high ocean temperatures in the tropical Atlantic and Caribbean resulted in the most severe bleaching event ever recorded in the basin. Methodology/Principal Findings: Satellite-based tools provided warnings for coral reef managers and scientists, guiding both the iming and location of researchers' field observations as anomalously warm conditions developed and spread across the greater Caribbean region from June to October 2005. Field surveys of bleaching and mortality exceeded prior efforts in detail and extent, and provided a new standard for documenting the effects of bleaching and for testing nowcast and forecast products. Collaborators from 22 countries undertook the most comprehensive documentation of basin-scale bleaching to date and found that over 80% of corals bleached and over 40% died at many sites. The most severe bleaching coincided with waters nearest a western Atlantic warm pool that was centered off the northern end of the Lesser Antilles. Conclusions/Significance: Thermal stress during the 2005 event exceeded any observed from the Caribbean in the prior 20 years, and regionally-averaged temperatures were the warmest in over 150 years. Comparison of satellite data against field surveys demonstrated a significant predictive relationship between accumulated heat stress (measured using NOAA Coral Reef Watch's Degree Heating Weeks) and bleaching intensity. This severe, widespread bleaching and mortality will undoubtedly have long-term consequences for reef ecosystems and suggests a troubled future for tropical marine ecosystems under a warming climate.

755 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Monitoring coral disease will create a baseline and long-term data set that can be used to test specific hypotheses about how climate and anthropogenic drivers, such as decreasing water quality, threaten coral reef sustainability.
Abstract: across the globe, we are witnessing the decline of coral reef ecosystems. One relatively new factor contributing to this decline is the outbreak of destructive infectious diseases, especially on Caribbean reefs. As the Coral Disease Working Group of the Coral Reef Targeted Research Program, our research focuses on four priorities: (1) assessing the global prevalence of coral disease, (2) investigating the environmental drivers of disease, (3) identifying the pathogens that cause disease, and (4) evaluating the coral’s ability to resist disease. Monitoring has revealed new coral-disease syndromes at each of four Global Environmental Fund Centers of Excellence: the Caribbean, the Philippines, Australia, and East Africa. Over the last 20 years, drastic (> 50 percent) loss of coral cover has occurred on the Yucatan Peninsula, even in pristine areas. Global surveys have revealed significant levels of disease and disease outbreaks occurring not only in the Caribbean “hotspots,” but also in sites throughout the Pacific and Indian Oceans. By monitoring coral disease, we will create a baseline and long-term data set that can be used to test specific hypotheses about how climate and anthropogenic drivers, such as decreasing water quality, threaten coral reef sustainability. One such hypothesis is that high-temperature anomalies drive outbreaks of disease by hindering the coral’s ability to fi ght infection and by increasing the pathogens’ virulence. We observed recurrent outbreaks following the warm summer months of two of the most damaging diseases in the Caribbean. In addition, we found that coral disease in the Great Barrier Reef correlated with warm temperature anomalies. In the Caribbean and Mediterranean Seas, virulence of known coral pathogens and the normal coral flora changed during high-temperature periods. Other stresses such as high nutrients and sedimentation may similarly alter the balance between the coral and its resident microbial flora.

492 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Current knowledge about how the climate drives host-pathogen interactions and infectious disease outbreaks is reviewed and an adaptive management approach is recommended to better increase the resilience of ocean systems vulnerable to marine diseases in a changing climate.
Abstract: Infectious diseases are common in marine environments, but the effects of a changing climate on marine pathogens are not well understood. Here we review current knowledge about how the climate drives host-pathogen interactions and infectious disease outbreaks. Climate-related impacts on marine diseases are being documented in corals, shellfish, finfish, and humans; these impacts are less clearly linked for other organisms. Oceans and people are inextricably linked, and marine diseases can both directly and indirectly affect human health, livelihoods, and well-being. We recommend an adaptive management approach to better increase the resilience of ocean systems vulnerable to marine diseases in a changing climate. Land-based management methods of quarantining, culling, and vaccinating are not successful in the ocean; therefore, forecasting conditions that lead to outbreaks and designing tools/approaches to influence these conditions may be the best way to manage marine disease.

427 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: An increase in diversity as well as a significant shift in community structure is determined in Montastraea faveolata colonies displaying phenotypic signs of White Plague Disease type II (WPD-II), and the possibility that a disease of yet to be determined etiology may have affected M. favelata colonies and resulted in an increase in opportunistic pathogens is discussed.
Abstract: Increasing evidence confirms the crucial role bacteria and archaea play within the coral holobiont, that is, the coral host and its associated microbial community. The bacterial component constitutes a community of high diversity, which appears to change in structure in response to disease events. In this study, we highlight the limitation of 16S rRNA gene (16S rDNA) clone library sequencing as the sole method to comprehensively describe coral-associated communities. This limitation was addressed by combining a high-density 16S rRNA gene microarray with, clone library sequencing as a novel approach to study bacterial communities in healthy versus diseased corals. We determined an increase in diversity as well as a significant shift in community structure in Montastraea faveolata colonies displaying phenotypic signs of White Plague Disease type II (WPD-II). An accumulation of species that belong to families that include known coral pathogens (Alteromonadaceae, Vibrionaceae), bacteria previously isolated from diseased, stressed or injured marine invertebrates (for example, Rhodobacteraceae), and other species (for example, Campylobacteraceae) was observed. Some of these species were also present in healthy tissue samples, but the putative primary pathogen, Aurantimonas corallicida, was not detected in any sample by either method. Although an ecological succession of bacteria during disease progression after causation by a primary agent represents a possible explanation for our observations, we also discuss the possibility that a disease of yet to be determined etiology may have affected M. faveolata colonies and resulted in (or be a result of) an increase in opportunistic pathogens.

363 citations


Cited by
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Journal Article
Fumio Tajima1
30 Oct 1989-Genomics
TL;DR: It is suggested that the natural selection against large insertion/deletion is so weak that a large amount of variation is maintained in a population.

11,521 citations

Journal Article
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a document, redatto, voted and pubblicato by the Ipcc -Comitato intergovernativo sui cambiamenti climatici - illustra la sintesi delle ricerche svolte su questo tema rilevante.
Abstract: Cause, conseguenze e strategie di mitigazione Proponiamo il primo di una serie di articoli in cui affronteremo l’attuale problema dei mutamenti climatici. Presentiamo il documento redatto, votato e pubblicato dall’Ipcc - Comitato intergovernativo sui cambiamenti climatici - che illustra la sintesi delle ricerche svolte su questo tema rilevante.

4,187 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
19 Aug 2011-Science
TL;DR: A meta-analysis shows that species are shifting their distributions in response to climate change at an accelerating rate, and that the range shift of each species depends on multiple internal species traits and external drivers of change.
Abstract: The distributions of many terrestrial organisms are currently shifting in latitude or elevation in response to changing climate Using a meta-analysis, we estimated that the distributions of species have recently shifted to higher elevations at a median rate of 110 meters per decade, and to higher latitudes at a median rate of 169 kilometers per decade These rates are approximately two and three times faster than previously reported The distances moved by species are greatest in studies showing the highest levels of warming, with average latitudinal shifts being generally sufficient to track temperature changes However, individual species vary greatly in their rates of change, suggesting that the range shift of each species depends on multiple internal species traits and external drivers of change Rapid average shifts derive from a wide diversity of responses by individual species

3,986 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the main ecological services across a variety of estuarine and coastal ecosystems (ECEs) including marshes, mangroves, nearshore coral reefs, seagrass beds, and sand beaches and dunes are reviewed.
Abstract: The global decline in estuarine and coastal ecosystems (ECEs) is affecting a number of critical benefits, or ecosystem services. We review the main ecological services across a variety of ECEs, including marshes, mangroves, nearshore coral reefs, seagrass beds, and sand beaches and dunes. Where possible, we indicate estimates of the key economic values arising from these services, and discuss how the natural variability of ECEs impacts their benefits, the synergistic relationships of ECEs across seascapes, and management implications. Although reliable valuation estimates are beginning to emerge for the key services of some ECEs, such as coral reefs, salt marshes, and mangroves, many of the important benefits of seagrass beds and sand dunes and beaches have not been assessed properly. Even for coral reefs, marshes, and mangroves, important ecological services have yet to be valued reliably, such as cross-ecosystem nutrient transfer (coral reefs), erosion control (marshes), and pollution control (mangroves). An important issue for valuing certain ECE services, such as coastal protection and habitat-fishery linkages, is that the ecological functions underlying these services vary spatially and temporally. Allowing for the connectivity between ECE habitats also may have important implications for assessing the ecological functions underlying key ecosystems services, such coastal protection, control of erosion, and habitat-fishery linkages. Finally, we conclude by suggesting an action plan for protecting and/or enhancing the immediate and longer-term values of ECE services. Because the connectivity of ECEs across land-sea gradients also influences the provision of certain ecosystem services, management of the entire seascape will be necessary to preserve such synergistic effects. Other key elements of an action plan include further ecological and economic collaborative research on valuing ECE services, improving institutional and legal frameworks for management, controlling and regulating destructive economic activities, and developing ecological restoration options.

3,750 citations