340 reef-building coral species face extinction risk

Worldwide, 340 reef-building coral species face extinction risk: climate change is their biggest threat, an international study reported on 16 October finds. Researchers at the Institute of Aquaculture Torre de la Sal in Castellón, Spain, took part in the work, published in Nature.

The team reviewed 892 species on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List. There was enough information to assess 774 of them. Of those, 340 — or 44% — are threatened, including 33 classed as critically endangered.

Climate change drives the risk

Climate change determined the final risk classification of more than 90% of the species at greatest risk. The share classed as threatened varies by region: 50% of the species assessed in the Atlantic Ocean, compared with 43% in the Indo-Pacific.

Those figures rely on data available up to 2020. The researchers warn that the share of threatened species could now be higher.

The Mediterranean connection

Diego Kersting, a researcher involved in the study, has spent more than two decades studying Cladocora caespitosa. It is the only reef-building coral still found in the Mediterranean Sea and is classed as endangered on the international Red List.

The study gives no figures specific to Mallorca.

Topics: Nature & wildlife

Source: Europa Press / Mallorca.com