Threatened reef corals of the world

10.1371/journal.pone.0034459PLoS ONE73

Urban coral reefs: Degradation and resilience of hard coral assemblages in coastal cities of East and Southeast Asia

© 2018 The Author(s) Given predicted increases in urbanization in tropical and subtropical regions, understanding the processes shaping urban coral reefs may be essential for anticipating future conservation challenges. We used a case study approach to identify unifying patterns of urban coral reefs and clarify the effects of urbanization on hard coral assemblages. Data were compiled from 11 cities throughout East and Southeast Asia, with particular focus on Singapore, Jakarta, Hong Kong, and Naha (Okinawa). Our review highlights several key characteristics of urban coral reefs, including “reef compression” (a decline in bathymetric range with increasing turbidity and decreasing water clarity over time and relative to shore), dominance by domed coral growth forms and low reef complexity, variable city-specific inshore-offshore gradients, early declines in coral cover with recent fluctuating periods of acute impacts and rapid recovery, and colonization of urban infrastructure by hard corals. We present hypotheses for urban reef community dynamics and discuss potential of ecological engineering for corals in urban areas

A new species of Polycyathus Duncan, 1876 from New Caledonia and a new record of Polycyathus senegalensis Chevalier, 1966 (Madreporaria)

A new species of Madreporaria, Polycyathus fulvus, is described from New Caledonia. Zooxanthellae have been found symbiotic in its polyps, although the genus is ahermatypic. Another Polycyathus, P. senegalensis Chevalier, 1966, is recorded from the Caribbean area; it was previously known from the eastern tropical Atlantic only. These two records extend the known range of the genus and show it to have a circumequatorial distribution in warm and warm-temperate waters

CORAL RESEARCH IN THE INDONESIAN ARCHIPELAGO, THE PAST, THE PRESENT, AND THE FUTURE

In the past, several big expeditions crossed the Indonesian waters. Coral reefs and their amazing structures and inhabitants were always amongst their special interest. Geomorphological reef theories concerning the Sunda shelf in the Pleistocene period and the barrier reefs in the archipelago have been formulated during the first forty years of the present century. Two major areas of research are discussed i.e. the Bay of Jakarta with emphasis on structure and history of one of two coral islands, Nyamuk and Sakit, and the Togian area in Celebes. The rich tertiary coral reefs, east of the Pleistocene Sunda shelf around Celebes, are treated at the hand of the studies of the geologist, J.H.F. UMBGROVE. This author came across several coral reef problems which are still of present day interest e.g. the diversity and variability of the coral species as a result of the complex ecosystem. Two examples are mentioned to give a general idea of the questions arising in different coral species. Nowadays these problems are normally approached from the geological, physiological, ecological or taxonomic point of view. Even so, in the future many field descriptions will have to be carried out along with zoogeographical work in the main centres of taxonomy, before the species of major influence on the structure of the coral reefs can even merely'be listed