Abstract
Coral reefs provide food and livelihoods for hundreds of millions of people as well as harbour some of the highest regions of biodiversity in the ocean. However, overexploitation, land‐use change and other local anthropogenic threats to coral reefs have left many degraded. Additionally, coral reefs are faced with the dual emerging threats of ocean warming and acidification due to rising CO 2 emissions, with dire predictions that they will not survive the century. This review evaluates the impacts of climate change on coral reef organisms, communities and ecosystems, focusing on the interactions between climate change factors and local anthropogenic stressors. It then explores the shortcomings of existing management and the move towards ecosystem‐based management and resilience thinking, before highlighting the need for climate change‐ready marine protected areas (MPAs), reduction in local anthropogenic stressors, novel approaches such as human‐assisted evolution and the importance of sustainable socialecological systems. It concludes that designation of climate change‐ready MPAs, integrated with other management strategies involving stakeholders and participation at multiple scales such as marine spatial planning, will be required to maximise coral reef resilience under climate change. However, efforts to reduce carbon emissions are critical if the long‐term efficacy of local management actions is to be maintained and coral reefs are to survive.
Highlights
INTRODUCTION INCREASING THREATS TO COR ALREEF ECOSYSTEMSCoral reefs are extremely diverse and valuable ecosystems, providing habitat for a third of marine species in just 0.2% of the ocean (Pandolfi, Connolly, Marshall, & Cohen, 2011)
They provide important ecosystem services to over 450 million people living within 100 km of them (Crabbe, 2008; Pandolfi et al, 2011), including fisheries, tourism, building materials, and protection from storm waves and coastal erosion
To maintain the resilience of social-ecological systems to climate change, we advocate for the need to (1) minimise local stressors, (2) design marine protected areas (MPAs) that address local pressures and incorporate measures to address global environmental change, (3) utilise active management approaches such as human-assisted evolution and reef restoration, and (4) develop coordinated management and governance at multiple scales from local customary tenure and community participation, to broader-scale marine spatial planning (MSP), to regulations at the international scale
Summary
INTRODUCTION INCREASING THREATS TO COR ALREEF ECOSYSTEMSCoral reefs are extremely diverse and valuable ecosystems, providing habitat for a third of marine species in just 0.2% of the ocean (Pandolfi, Connolly, Marshall, & Cohen, 2011). More research is needed to understand interactions between stressors, especially those which most influence other stressors, to enable more effective management prioritisation to mitigate against the most severe impacts of climate change and human activities on coral reef ecosystems (Ban et al, 2014).
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
