Featured Coral Publications
Below is a sampling of publications generated by NOAA's coral ecosystem activities. Visit the Featured Archive to see a past list of highlighted publications. To access a complete list of NOAA coral ecosystem related publications, use the CoRIS Geoportal () search tool.
Recent losses of Dendrogyra cylindrus from the wild have been due largely to the panzootic of Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD). In 2016, a multi-institutional collaboration began rescuing the remaining genotypes from the wild and placing them into ex situ and in situ nurseries. NOAA NOS NCCOS Coral Health and Disease Program (Charleston SC) conducted exploratory treatments to recover and rehabilitate D. cylindrus genotypes. This NOAA Technical Memorandum chronicles over four years (2016-2019) and seven collection and rescue events, experimental treatments, and rehabilitation of Dendrogyra cylindrus genotypes afflicted with SCTLD from Florida reefs.
Florida's Coral Reef stretches approximately 360 linear miles from St. Lucie Inlet in Martin County past Key West to the Dry Tortugas, including Biscayne National Park, the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, and the Southeast Florida Coral Reef Ecosystem Conservation Area.
In 2014, NOAA Coral Reef Watch wrote about the prospect for a 2014-2015 El Niño which, while not fully formed, helped start a three-year global coral bleaching event. The 2014-2017 global coral bleaching event was the third ever documented and is currently on record as the longest, most widespread, and most damaging bleaching event. It affected more coral reefs than any previous global bleaching event. In some coral reef areas, including reefs that had never bleached before, heat stress was the highest ever recorded, lasted for many months, and caused mass bleaching reef-wide.
Stony coral tissue loss disease was first observed in south Florida in 2014. As of September 2020, it has spread to 13 Caribbean countries and territories. The outbreak is unique due to its large geographic range, extended duration, rapid progression, high rates of coral mortality, and the number of species affected. Once infected, coral colonies typically die within weeks to months. While the cause of the disease is still unknown, it is believed that the pathogen may have a bacterial component due to its response to antibiotic treatments. Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease can be transmitted to other corals through direct contact and water circulation. Recently, leadership from Indo-Pacific countries and territories shared concerns that the disease could spread into the region.
In response to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine study on coral interventions, NOAA developed an action plan. The NOAA Action Plan on Coral Interventions will guide how NOAA approaches coral interventions in the next one to three years. The plan encompasses four actions for NOAA: (1) research and test priority interventions, (2) develop local or regional structured decision support, (3) review policy implications of coral interventions, and (4) invest in infrastructure, research, and coordination.
A Manager's Guide to Coral Reef Restoration Planning and Design supports the needs of reef managers seeking to begin restoration or assess their current restoration program. The Guide is aimed at reef resource managers and conservationists, along with everyone who plans, implements, and monitors restoration activities.
NOAA CRCP recently released a set of Local Manager Reports summarizing estimates of coral reef ecological resilience and social vulnerability for the US Pacific. Extending the results of these reports, NOAA researchers compare the resilience metrics to a diversity of other metrics for prioritizing management actions under a regime of resilience-based-management (RBM). Using efficiency frontier analysis, they show that the resilience metrics provide a robust method of prioritizing effort in RBM that successfully generates "win-win" tradeoffs across a diversity of concerns.
The purpose of the report card is to communicate the importance of conserving coral reef habitat in the Gulf of Mexico, and the report card is available in English and Spanish. Currently, different organizations throughout the Gulf of Mexico monitor coral reef ecosystems using different methods which complicates comparisons; therefore, the report card is considered preliminary.
Chemicals used to filter or block harmful ultraviolet (UV) rays in in many sunscreen products negatively impact corals reefs and other marine environments. The NOAA Central Library assembled a comprehensive bibliography on the topic, including studies focused on the direct impacts of UV filters on corals; the environmental fate and life cycle of UV filters in marine environments; concentrations of UV filters in marine environments; and laboratory and field studies concerning the endocrine disruption and toxicology effects of UV filters on corals, reef associated organisms, and non-aquatic organisms.
Due to climate change, coral reefs are now being subjected to extreme marine heatwave (MHW) conditions. Leggat et al. show that large-scale mortality due to MHWs and microbial colonization leads to a previously undescribed rapid dissolution of the coral skeleton.
Highlights of this publication are:
- Marine heatwaves lead to rapid coral mortality and microbial biofilm formation.
- Microbial metabolic activity results in rapid dissolution of the coral skeleton.
- Dissolution reduces skeletal hardness and density and increases porosity.
Based on interviews with collectors, a synthesis of trip ticket results, and population abundance estimates, the long-term stability of the octocoral fishery is not likely to change significantly. The social dynamics of the aquarium industry to seek colorful, rare, and exotic marine species for home aquaria places octocorals at the lower end of the list of desired species. For multiple sampling periods, over a decadal period (1999-2009) in the Florida Keys, where most octocoral collection occurs, abundance estimates presented for 15 species illustrate that population sizes are large (tens of millions to hundreds of millions of colonies, per species) and abundance is stable or increasing.
