TheTheir large number does not protect them from extinction, but it makes it possible to relativize the risk for each type of coral reef: in other words, some are less threatening than others, we can conclude in light of the first “census” of the species, published on March 1 in the journal. Nature’s ecology and evolution.

Four Australian researchers estimated the presence of more than 310 species of coral reefs at 900 sites ranging from Indonesia to the islands of French Polynesia. “Two-thirds of the species examined have a population of over 100 million colonies” indicating that despite the duly documented decline – one believes in Australia’s Great Reefs – it represents “imminent threats” to marine ecosystems. As a whole, the global risk of coral extinction can be reduced.

The warming of the oceans poses the greatest risks to coral reefs, as well as to the marine animals that depend on them. And so the Great Barrier has gone through three episodes of “bleaching” – a fading phenomenon – since 2016. And as such, we read in the study, that “local depletion of coral species” can also lead to a chain. Associated organisms’ extinction, long before the coral species themselves went extinct.