Co-occurring Stressors on Coral Reefs

Anthropogenic disturbances are posing unprecedented challenges to the persistence of ecosystems worldwide with environmental levels quickly exceeding ecosystem tolerance thresholds. Using the world’s coral reefs as a case example, we show that the projected effects of marine heatwaves, ocean acidification, storms, land-based pollution, and local human stressors are being underestimated considerably by looking at disturbances independently. Under business-as-usual scenarios, the median year after which environmental conditions become unsuitable for the world’s remaining coral reefs was 2035, with unsuitable conditions for 99% of reefs by 2050. Furthermore, 93% of reefs would be under unsuitable conditions for multiple stressors by 2100. The full publication can be found here. All relevant code can be found here.