Coral reef overview

One of the first things that comes to mind when thinking of a marine tropical climate is coral reefs. You may think of a beautiful array of colors, a wide diversity of fish, a true touch of nature’s potential or just a great place to bring the smile out of your child. However, this first thought may be followed or even replaced with thoughts and feelings of oil drenched birds, bleached white coral, sadness and disgust.

Left photo courtesy of California Academy of Sciences. Right photo taken from website cited in more information.

The worlds largest coral reef is the Great Barrier Reef located in Coral Sea near Australia. One of the worlds seven natural wonders, it consists of 2,900 individual reefs and stretches over 2,600 kilometers; It's the only living thing big enough to view from space! This oasis of nature's true potential is enough to generate 4-5 billion AU$. If this beautiful, unique and profitable area disappears it would be disastrous for the industries that depend on tourism for money and jobs, as well as for people who depend on the reef system for subsistence. As figure 1 shows, the decline in species richness of fish communities is almost identical to the decline in coral cover (Jones et al. 2004). More convincingly, these trends are the same for areas in and out of marine reserves. It doesn't matter how much protection we offer if fish communities don't have healthy coral for protection, food and reproduction.

Photo of the Great Barrier Reef from space. Photo taken from website cited in more information. Want to visit or get more details about the Great Barrier Reef

Figure 1: Data from Jones et al. 2004 showing parallel declines in coral and fish communities both within and outside marine reserves. 


If you happen to be a biologist, climatologist, geologist, ecologist or just a curious teenager then some questions may come to mind, such as; what problems do coral reefs face, what current research is being done, how much longer will they be around, can we do anything to ensure to future of reefs, will my child or grandchild have a chance to see them? Scientists of all fields from all parts of the world are putting great efforts into these questions one step at a time. These are major questions  that are not easy to answer and often require many concurrent studies or collaboration of separate research projects. The best case scenario for the present is to conserve and manage all the reefs that are left, but this is not easy, cheap or realistic. Putting an area aside as a marine protected area (MPA) is not always easy to do or to manage once it is claimed. All this research takes time, money and effort that is hard to come by these days.


Since coral reefs provide excellent tourism opportunities, some money and effort can be obtained from the local community given the collaborative tools and education from current studies. MPA’s are often not enough to save an ecological community like coral reefs. Since reefs provide substantial habitat for many marine species of all tropic levels, any plan that attempts to conserve and manage this system essentially depends on our understanding of its ecological interactions between species, chemicals, and human activities. Since reefs support at least a quarter of all marine life, including 4,000 different species of fish, by providing nursery, spawning, refuge and feeding areas, about a billion people depend on them for food and/or jobs (Attenborough 2009). As David Attenborough, writer and presenter of the Life television series, says, "Anybody's who's had the privilege of diving on a coral reef will have seen the natural world at its most glorious, diverse and beautiful...[We have a] moral responsibility one has to the natural world. Also you have responsibility to future generations, to your future grandchildren and great grandchildren."

Movie from YouTube: Dakuwaqa's Garden - Underwater footage from Fiji & Tonga




This review attempts to collect some of the current work being done on coral reefs. This is by no means all of the work being done, but it outlines some current problems they face, attempts to conserve them, success stories, conservation and management examples, and a future outlook of reef survival. The goal of this study is to make more people aware of the problems faced trying to save something as unique and unknown as coral reefs. We can’t focus exclusively on anthropogenic problems and solutions because we don’t understand all the ecological interactions and how they might be affected by the same changes. Ecological interactions also provide insight for conservation ideas and management indicators that may lead to valid conservation opportunities. However, we cannot expect to find all the interactions, nor is it realistic to expect time, money and effort to permit so. We must find a balance between the two and collaborate all of the available data to provide our best effort to keep these reefs around for our next generations.