Indo-Pacific Coral Reefs Disappearing More Rapidly Than Expected

Corals in the central and western Pacific ocean are dying faster than previously thought, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers have found. Nearly 600 square miles of reef have disappeared per year since the late 1960s, twice the rate of rainforest loss. The reefs are disappearing at a rate of one percent per year, a decline that began decades earlier than expected, the researchers discovered. Historically, coral cover, a measure of reef health, hovered around 50 percent. Today, only about 2 percent of reefs in the Indo-Pacific have coral cover close to the historical baseline uA…aˆ?We have already lost half of the worldus reef-building corals,uA‚A? said John Bruno, lead study author and associate professor of marine ecology and conservation in the department of marine sciences in UNC-Chapel Hillus College of Arts and Sciences...