1. IntroductionDisturbances of various types have been invoked toexplain the changing face of Caribbean reefs over thelast 25 yr. Coral mortality, especially mortality of theAcropora species, has been a major driving force inthe transition (Aronson and Precht, 2001a,b,c). By theearly 1980s the coral zonation pattern dominated bythe Acropora spp. had essentially disappeared on many,if not most, Caribbean reefs (Jackson, 1991, 1992; Aron-son and Precht, 2001b). A number of factors have beenresponsible for Acropora mortality, with white-band dis-ease (WBD), temperature stress, predation, and hurri-canes having been some of the most significant atreducing populations both locally and regionally. Themost important of these, WBD, has devastated popula-tions since the 1970s (Gladfelter, 1982; Bythell andSheppard, 1993; Aronson and Precht, 2001c). Sheppard(1993) asked ‘‘Why were the warnings of mass mortality[of Acropora] from this cause [WBD] ignored?’’ Even to-day, some two decades after the first published accounts,many scientists fail to recognize the importance of thiscoral killer (Lapointe, 1997; Jackson et al., 2001;Szmant, 2002; Pandolfi et al., 2003). While much isknown about the ecological consequences of WBD, littleis known about the etiology, origin, recurrence, andspread of this deadly epizootic (Richardson and Aron-son, 2002).In Florida for instance, it is well documented thatAcropora-dominated communities are dynamic at thescale of individual reefs, and they have been extremelyvolatile over the past century (Mayer, 1902; Davis,1982; Shinn, 1976; Enos, 1977; Shinn, 1989; Jaap andSargent, 1994; Jaap, 1998). However, by 1982 the acrop-orids had been exterminated over a large portion of theFlorida reef tract (Gleason, 1984), necessitating theircomplete protection (see Antonius, 1994a,b). In fact,the current Caribbean-wide decline of acroporids isunprecedented in at least the last few thousand years(Aronson and Precht, 1997; Aronson et al., 2002; Wap-nick et al., 2004) and possibly longer (Greenstein et al.,1998).To increase awareness of the catastrophic decline ofthe Acropora spp., the United States National MarineFisheries Service (NMFS) identified elkhorn coral(Acropora palmata), staghorn coral (A. cervicornis)andfused staghorn coral (A. prolifera, a hybrid of A. pal-mata and A. cervicornis [Vollmer and Palumbi, 2002])as candidate species for possible addition to the List ofThreatened and Endangered Species under the Endan-gered Species Act (ESA) (Diaz-Soltero, 1999; Bruckner,2002; Bruckner and Hourigan, 2002; Precht et al., 2002).Candidate status does not add legal protection, but it isdesigned to promote efforts to obtain reliable informa-tion on the species and to encourage voluntary conser-vation strategies for the protection of remainingpopulations. Unfortunately, increased awareness doesnot provide any tools or protections against disease, glo-bal warming, and other large-scale factors. Further-more, the traditional protections provided by the ESAhave little application to widely distributed species suchas the acroporids, which are found extensively outsideUS jurisdiction and which are not presently harvestedor hunted. Because substantial scientific evidence nowexists regarding the decline throughout their range, thesecorals were transferred to the Species of Concern Listwhen this list was established in 2004 (Cain, 2004). InMarch 2004, NMFS received a petition from the Centerfor Biological Diversity requesting that NMFS listthe Acropora spp. as endangered or threatened and