This webinar originally aired on 1 August, 2019.
A new study just published in Nature Climate Change shows that management that takes evolution and adaptation into account can help rescue coral reefs from the effects of climate change. The results indicate that managing reefs to facilitate evolution today and in the future can enhance their prospects for long-term survival. Key to successful evolution is management that improves local conditions for reefs by effectively reducing local stressors, such as overfishing and water pollution. Contrary to approaches that are popular today, such as focusing protection on reefs in cooler water, the study shows that protecting diverse reef habitat types across a spectrum of ocean conditions is key to helping corals adapt to climate change. This means creating managed area networks that contain a diversity of coral types and habitats and that effectively reduce local stressors. You can read the paper online at go.nature.com/2J0e8XU or download it at nature.com/articles/s41558-019-0518-5.
Presented by: Madhavi Colton of the Coral Reef Alliance and Tim Walsworth of Utah State University
Co-sponsors: OCTO (OpenChannels, The Skimmer, MPA News) and the EBM Tools Network (co-coordinated by OCTO and NatureServe)