BACKGROUND Cold-water coral reef ecosystems are recognized as biodiversity hotspots in the deep sea, but insights into their associated bacterial communities are still limited. Deciphering principle patterns of bacterial community variation over multiple spatial scales may however prove critical for a better understanding of factors contributing to cold-water coral reef stability and functionin...

Use of coral skeletons to determine growth histories of reefs situated in warm, clear tropical waters is well established. Recently, however, there has been increasing awareness of the significance of reefs occurring in environments that are considered as marginal for coral growth, such as turbid inshore settings characterized by episodes of elevated turbidity, low light penetration, and period...

Coral reefs are, per unit area, the most productive and diverse ecosystems on the planet. Their complexity and, in some places, fragility provide many complications to scientists conducting high quality research in these environments. Scientific diving has been, for the past six decades, a highly cost-effective and productive tool in coral reef research. Using high impact outputs and based main...

Coral reefs increasingly are undergoing transitions from coral to macroalgal dominance. Although the functional roles of reef herbivores in controlling algae are becoming better understood, identifying possible tipping points in the herbivory-macroalgae relationships has remained a challenge. Assessment of where any coral reef ecosystem lies in relation to the coral-to-macroalgae tipping point ...

Coral reefs around the world are largely in decline (Bellwood et al. 2004; Bruno & Selig 2007; De’ath et al. 2012), putting the roughly 7.5% of humanity that depends on them in jeopardy. Diagnoses of the extent of reef decline and debate about the causes, which collectively define the global coral reef crisis, are based largely on local-scale estimates of shallow-water reef condition measured a...

High biodiversity ecosystems are commonly associated with complex habitats. Coral reefs are highly diverse ecosystems, but are under increasing pressure from numerous stressors, many of which reduce live coral cover and habitat complexity with concomitant effects on other organisms such as reef fishes. While previous studies have highlighted the importance of habitat complexity in structuring r...

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The health and functioning of coral reef ecosystems worldwide is in decline, and in the face of increasing anthropogenic stress, the rate of decline of these important ecosystems is set to accelerate. Mitigation strategies at regional scales are costly, but nevertheless critical, as reef systems are highly connected across regions by ocean transport of both larval propagules and pollutants. It ...

zaki’s reef is located in the gulf of suez, a narrow portion of the red sea, with exceptionally dry and hot climate and lacks almost all scientific data. this research intends to describe the area’s unique climatology, which may reveal correlations between the reef’s existence at high latitude and extreme climate conditions. air temperature at zaki’s reef fluctuated between 0.3 and 58.6oc with ...

Crustose coralline algae (CCA) are key producers of carbonate sediment on reefs today. Despite their importance in modern reef ecosystems, the long-term relationship of CCA with reef development has not been quantitatively assessed in the fossil record. This study includes data from 128 Cenozoic coral reefs collected from the Paleobiology Database, the Paleoreefs Database, as well as the origin...