Coral Reef History

Evolutionary history of Coral Reefs, to go forward we must go back

With the future of coral reefs being uncertain, and 2015 set to experience an El Nino to rival that of 1998, the future of these highly biodiverse ecosystems is something that researchers are rapidly trying figure out. Piecing together, and unlocking mechanisms involved in a coral species ability to adapt and or acclimatise, illustrate how some species of coral are more resilient to stress and answers as to what gives them this resilience. Ecosystems like coral reefs are so important; not only do they support a vast amount of species by being habitat engineers. They are also important to the 500 million people that rely on the reefs so heavily for food, a financial pool and

The relationship between geography and evolutionary innovation was analyzed in a dominant complex of Caribbean reef corals, in which morphological and genetic data concur on species differences. Morphospecies were recognized within the seven units, determined by growth form using geometric morphometric techniques. Thirty-Two modern genetically characterised colonies of the three modern species were also used to create a baseline for morphospecies recognition. Mahalanobis distances between species were also used to determine whether any of the fossil morphospecies were the same as the three modern species. Various other Mahalnobis distances where also calculated, to trace linages through time, morphological disparity and used to create an index of evolutionary novelty. The findings concluded that morphological disparity varies from the centre to the edge of the Caribbean and that lineages are static at well-connected areas but split in edges where gene-flow is limited. Expanding the geological time series by using fossil records, as well as genetic and physical data allows for a more complete picture of factors influencing reef connectivity and evolutionary responses to environmental

Anthropogenic factors pose intensifying threats to marine ecosystems leading to potential extinctions. Knowledge of past extinction patterns is important for predicting the factors that will determine future extinction vulnerability. Investigation into extinction rates across marine genera over the past 23 million years by using paleontologically calibrated models to assess intrinsic risk- extinction risk; extinction risk, defined as the probability of a fossil taxon being classified as extinct on the basis of its similarity to other fossil taxa that went extinct over the same interval of time, to evaluate the vulnerabilities of extant marine taxa. The intrinsic risk refers to the paleontologically calibrated estimates of baseline vulnerability of modern taxa. Mapping the geographical distribution identifies coastal biogeographic provinces where fauna with high intrinsic risk are strongly affected by human activity or climate change. The regions are disproportionately in the tropics, giving an indication that these ecosystems are particularly vulnerable to future