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Originally published in Science Express on 17 July 2003
Science 15 August 2003:
Vol. 301. no. 5635, pp. 958 - 960
DOI: 10.1126/science.1086050
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Reports

Long-Term Region-Wide Declines in Caribbean Corals

Toby A. Gardner,1,3 Isabelle M. Côté,1* Jennifer A. Gill,1,2,3 Alastair Grant,2 Andrew R. Watkinson1,2,3

We report a massive region-wide decline of corals across the entire Caribbean basin, with the average hard coral cover on reefs being reduced by 80%, from about 50% to 10% cover, in three decades. Our meta-analysis shows that patterns of change in coral cover are variable across time periods but largely consistent across subregions, suggesting that local causes have operated with some degree of synchrony on a region-wide scale. Although the rate of coral loss has slowed in the past decade compared to the 1980s, significant declines are persisting. The ability of Caribbean coral reefs to cope with future local and global environmental change may be irretrievably compromised.

1 School of Biological Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK.
2 School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK.
3 Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: i.cote{at}uea.ac.uk

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