Coral Reefs - Present, Past and Future

Nancy Knowlton, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian

April 26, 2010 @ 04:45 pm to 05:45 pm

112 Chambers

Event Website

Most coral reefs are a pale shadow of their former selves._ Overfishing, pollution, invasive species and increasingly greenhouse gases have taken an enormous toll - about 80% of the living coral in the Caribbean and 50% in the Pacific have already been lost._ At the same time, we know almost nothing about what actually lives on coral reefs. Estimates suggest that 25-35% of all marine species live on reefs, despite the fact that their total area is about the size of the country France._ The number of crab species living in just 6.3 square meters of central Pacific reef is equivalent to 70% of the entire described European crab fauna._ Fortunately, remote reefs protected from local human impacts still remain healthy, so we know that damage from global change is not yet irrevocable._ The challenge for the future is to figure out how human wellbeing and coral health can co-exist.

Contact

Kristen Granger
klg297@psu.edu