Journal ArticleDOI
Confronting the coral reef crisis
TLDR
The ecological roles of critical functional groups (for both corals and reef fishes) that are fundamental to understanding resilience and avoiding phase shifts from coral dominance to less desirable, degraded ecosystems are reviewed.Abstract:
The worldwide decline of coral reefs calls for an urgent reassessment of current management practices. Confronting large-scale crises requires a major scaling-up of management efforts based on an improved understanding of the ecological processes that underlie reef resilience. Managing for improved resilience, incorporating the role of human activity in shaping ecosystems, provides a basis for coping with uncertainty, future changes and ecological surprises. Here we review the ecological roles of critical functional groups (for both corals and reef fishes) that are fundamental to understanding resilience and avoiding phase shifts from coral dominance to less desirable, degraded ecosystems. We identify striking biogeographic differences in the species richness and composition of functional groups, which highlight the vulnerability of Caribbean reef ecosystems. These findings have profound implications for restoration of degraded reefs, management of fisheries, and the focus on marine protected areas and biodiversity hotspots as priorities for conservation.read more
Citations
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
Resilience: the emergence of a perspective for social-ecological systems analyses
Carl Folke,Carl Folke +1 more
TL;DR: The resilience perspective is increasingly used as an approach for understanding the dynamics of social-ecological systems as mentioned in this paper, which emphasizes non-linear dynamics, thresholds, uncertainty and surprise, how periods of gradual change interplay with periods of rapid change and how such dynamics interact across temporal and spatial scales.
Journal ArticleDOI
Planetary boundaries: Exploring the safe operating space for humanity
Johan Rockström,Johan Rockström,Will Steffen,Will Steffen,Kevin J. Noone,Åsa Persson,Åsa Persson,F. Stuart Chapin,Eric F. Lambin,Timothy M. Lenton,Marten Scheffer,Carl Folke,Carl Folke,Hans Joachim Schellnhuber,Hans Joachim Schellnhuber,Björn Nykvist,Björn Nykvist,Cynthia A. de Wit,Terry P. Hughes,Sander van der Leeuw,Henning Rodhe,Sverker Sörlin,Sverker Sörlin,Peter K. Snyder,Robert Costanza,Robert Costanza,Uno Svedin,Malin Falkenmark,Malin Falkenmark,Louise Karlberg,Louise Karlberg,Robert W. Corell,Victoria J. Fabry,James Hansen,Brian Walker,Brian Walker,Diana Liverman,Katherine Richardson,Paul J. Crutzen,Jonathan A. Foley +39 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors proposed a new approach to global sustainability in which they define planetary boundaries within which they expect that humanity can operate safely. But the proposed concept of "planetary boundaries" lays the groundwork for shifting our approach to governance and management, away from the essentially sectoral analyses of limits to growth aimed at minimizing negative externalities, toward the estimation of the safe space for human development.
Journal ArticleDOI
The value of estuarine and coastal ecosystem services
Edward B. Barbier,Sally D. Hacker,Chris J. Kennedy,Evamaria W. Koch,Adrian C. Stier,Brian R. Silliman +5 more
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.
Journal ArticleDOI
Regime Shifts, Resilience, and Biodiversity in Ecosystem Management
Carl Folke,S. R. Carpenter,Brian Walker,Marten Scheffer,Thomas Elmqvist,Lance Gunderson,C. S. Holling +6 more
TL;DR: Active adaptive management and governance of resilience will be required to sustain desired ecosystem states and transform degraded ecosystems.
Journal ArticleDOI
Accelerating loss of seagrasses across the globe threatens coastal ecosystems
Michelle Waycott,Carlos M. Duarte,Tim J. B. Carruthers,Robert J. Orth,William C. Dennison,Suzanne V. Olyarnik,Ainsley Calladine,James W. Fourqurean,Kenneth L. Heck,A. Randall Hughes,Gary A. Kendrick,W. Judson Kenworthy,Frederick T. Short,Susan L. Williams +13 more
TL;DR: This comprehensive global assessment of 215 studies found that seagrasses have been disappearing at a rate of 110 km2 yr−1 since 1980 and that 29% of the known areal extent has disappeared since seagRass areas were initially recorded in 1879.
References
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
Biodiversity hotspots for conservation priorities
Norman Myers,Russell A. Mittermeier,Cristina G. Mittermeier,Gustavo A. B. da Fonseca,Jennifer Kent +4 more
TL;DR: A ‘silver bullet’ strategy on the part of conservation planners, focusing on ‘biodiversity hotspots’ where exceptional concentrations of endemic species are undergoing exceptional loss of habitat, is proposed.
Journal ArticleDOI
Catastrophic shifts in ecosystems.
TL;DR: Recent studies show that a loss of resilience usually paves the way for a switch to an alternative state, which suggests that strategies for sustainable management of such ecosystems should focus on maintaining resilience.
Journal ArticleDOI
Historical overfishing and the recent collapse of coastal ecosystems.
Jeremy B. C. Jackson,Jeremy B. C. Jackson,Michael Xavier Kirby,Wolfgang H Berger,Karen A. Bjorndal,Louis W. Botsford,Bruce J. Bourque,Roger Bradbury,Richard G. Cooke,Jon M. Erlandson,James A. Estes,Terry P. Hughes,Susan M. Kidwell,Carina B. Lange,Hunter S. Lenihan,John M. Pandolfi,Charles H. Peterson,Robert S. Steneck,Mia J. Tegner,Robert R. Warner +19 more
TL;DR: Paleoecological, archaeological, and historical data show that time lags of decades to centuries occurred between the onset of overfishing and consequent changes in ecological communities, because unfished species of similar trophic level assumed the ecological roles of over-fished species until they too were overfished or died of epidemic diseases related to overcrowding as mentioned in this paper.
Journal ArticleDOI
The Struggle to Govern the Commons
TL;DR: Promising strategies for addressing critical problems of the environment include dialogue among interested parties, officials, and scientists; complex, redundant, and layered institutions; a mix of institutional types; and designs that facilitate experimentation, learning, and change.
Journal ArticleDOI
Climate Change, Human Impacts, and the Resilience of Coral Reefs
Terry P. Hughes,Andrew H. Baird,David R. Bellwood,M. Card,Sean R. Connolly,Carl Folke,Richard K. Grosberg,Ove Hoegh-Guldberg,Jeremy B. C. Jackson,Jeremy B. C. Jackson,Joan A. Kleypas,Janice M. Lough,Paul Marshall,Magnus Nyström,Stephen R. Palumbi,John M. Pandolfi,Brian R. Rosen,Jonathan Roughgarden +17 more
TL;DR: International integration of management strategies that support reef resilience need to be vigorously implemented, and complemented by strong policy decisions to reduce the rate of global warming.
Related Papers (5)
Climate Change, Human Impacts, and the Resilience of Coral Reefs
Terry P. Hughes,Andrew H. Baird,David R. Bellwood,M. Card,Sean R. Connolly,Carl Folke,Richard K. Grosberg,Ove Hoegh-Guldberg,Jeremy B. C. Jackson,Jeremy B. C. Jackson,Joan A. Kleypas,Janice M. Lough,Paul Marshall,Magnus Nyström,Stephen R. Palumbi,John M. Pandolfi,Brian R. Rosen,Jonathan Roughgarden +17 more
Coral Reefs Under Rapid Climate Change and Ocean Acidification
Historical overfishing and the recent collapse of coastal ecosystems.
Jeremy B. C. Jackson,Jeremy B. C. Jackson,Michael Xavier Kirby,Wolfgang H Berger,Karen A. Bjorndal,Louis W. Botsford,Bruce J. Bourque,Roger Bradbury,Richard G. Cooke,Jon M. Erlandson,James A. Estes,Terry P. Hughes,Susan M. Kidwell,Carina B. Lange,Hunter S. Lenihan,John M. Pandolfi,Charles H. Peterson,Robert S. Steneck,Mia J. Tegner,Robert R. Warner +19 more