Only a tiny percentage of the world's corals and tropical fish is safeguarded by current marine protected areas.
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.
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Protected areas miss key corals. Nature 529, 259 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/529259e
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/529259e