Humans have caused profound changes in Caribbean coral reefs

From a story by Camilo Mora posted on EurekAlet:

Coral reefs in the Caribbean have suffered significant changes due to the proximal effects of a growing human population, reports a study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, B.

“It is well acknowledged that coral reefs are declining worldwide but the driving forces remain hotly debated,” said author Camilo Mora at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada. “In the Caribbean alone, these losses are endangering a large number of species, from corals to sharks, and jeopardizing over 4 billion dollars in services worth from fisheries, tourism and coastal protection,” he added.

“The continuing degradation of coral reefs may be soon beyond repair, if threats are not identified and rapidly controlled,” Mora said. “This new study moves from the traditional localized study of threats to a region-wide scale, while simultaneously analyzing contrasting socioeconomic and environmental variables,” he added. . . .

The study also showed that the effective compliance of fishing regulations inside Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) has been successful in protecting fish populations. But coral mortality and macroalgae abundance showed no response to the presence of MPAs. That was explained by the general failure of MPAs in the Caribbean to account for threats such as land runoffs and ocean warming. "Unfortunately, the degradation of the coral reef matrix inside MPAs may, in the long term, defeat their positive effect on fish populations,” Mora said. “This further highlights the need for a holistic control of human stressors,” he added.