Ecological goods and services of coral reef ecosystems

Abstract

This article identifies ecological goods and services of coral reef ecosystems, with special emphasis on how they are generated. Goods are divided into renewable resources and reef mining. Ecological services are classified into physical structure services, biotic services, biogeochemical services, information services, and social/cultural services. A review of economic valuation studies reveals that only a few of the goods and services of reefs have been captured. We synthesize current understanding of the relationships between ecological services and functional groups of species and biological communities of coral reefs in different regions of the world. The consequences of human impacts on coral reefs are also discussed, including loss of resilience, or buffer capacity. Such loss may impair the capacity for recovery of coral reefs and as a consequence the quality and quantity of their delivery of ecological goods and services. Conserving the capacity of reefs to generate essential services requires that they are managed as components of a larger seascape-landscape of which human activities are seen as integrated parts.