The status of hard coral communities at Kosrae, Micronesia

Abstract

Coral diversity is increasingly threatened by multi- ple anthropogenic and climate stressors. Threatened species assessments play an important role in guiding conservation actionformanagementandmitigationoflosses,buttoprovide accurateassessments itisnecessarytocollect quantitativedata at an appropriate scale. When assessed at a global scale the level of threat facing corals in the tropical western Pacific Ocean is perceived to be low. However, whether the global threat classifications reflect the needs of species at regional scales remains to be verified. Here the status of scleractinian coral diversity is explored at a little-known Micronesian lo- cality, Kosrae (5°15'S 162°58 E). Sixteen percent of the species recorded on the current survey are classified as Vulnerable on a global scale; however, down-scaling the assessment suggests that a larger proportion of species (up to 25%) may be vulnerable to regional extinction because they occupy a low proportion of sites. Twelvespecies are classified as Vulnerable at global and regional scales, and further monitoring of threatened species is needed to verify the status of 53 species that are listed as Data Deficient in the region. Despite the lower level of perceived extinction risk to coral communities in the NW Pacific, this study sug- gests the risk of regional diversity loss may be higher than expected. Ongoing coral reef monitoring and integrated wa- tershed management to mitigate the threat of regional extinc- tions is needed.