Only a tiny percentage of the world's corals and tropical fish is safeguarded by current marine protected areas.

Credit: Terry Hughes

David Mouillot at the University of Montpellier in France and his colleagues compared the geographical range of 805 species of reef-forming hard corals (pictured) and 452 tropical reef fish with a database of more than 3,600 marine protected areas. They then analysed the trees of life of these organisms and found that just 1.7% of the tree's 'branches' for the corals and 17.6% for the fishes had 10% or more of their ranges within the marine protected areas.

Improved conservation strategies are needed to better secure the biodiversity of these animals, the authors say.

Nature Commun. 7, 10359 (2016)