Protecting Connectivity Promotes Successful Biodiversity and Fisheries Conservation

The global decline of coral reefs had led to calls for strategies that reconcile biodiversity conservation and fisheries benefits. Still considerable gaps in our understanding of the spatial ecology of ecosystem services remain. We combined spatial information on larval dispersal networks and estimated of human pressure to test the importance of connectivity for ecosystem service provision. We found that reefs receiving larvae from highly connected dispersal corridors were associated with high fish species richness.

Global Distribution of Cold-water Corals - United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre

This dataset shows the global distribution of cold-water corals. Occurrence records are given for 86 Families under the subclass Octocorallia (octocorals; also known as Alcyonaria) and four Orders (in Class Anthozoa): Scleractinia (reef-forming corals), Antipatharia (black corals), Zoanthidae (encrusting or button polyps), and Pennatulacea (sea pens). Occurrence records are also available for the order sub-Order Filifera (lace corals) in Class Hydrozoa.

Global Distribution of Coral Reefs - United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre

This dataset shows the global distribution of coral reefs in tropical and subtropical regions. It is the most comprehensive global dataset of warm-water coral reefs to date, acting as a foundation baseline map for future, more detailed, work. This dataset was compiled from a number of sources by UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) and the WorldFish Centre, in collaboration with WRI (World Resources Institute) and TNC (The Nature Conservancy).