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Coral conservation in a warming world must harness evolutionary adaptation

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 6, pages 1405–1407 (2022)Cite this article

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To facilitate evolutionary adaptation to climate change, we must protect networks of coral reefs that span a range of environmental conditions — not just apparent ‘refugia’.

Evolution plays a crucial role in determining how populations respond to climatic changes1,2,3, and evidence is growing that evolutionary adaptation to contemporary warming can occur when sufficient genetic variation for climate-related traits is present4. In fact, evolutionary adaptation will be essential for the persistence of many species that inhabit narrow geographic ranges and/or habitat zones, such as reef-building corals.

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Fig. 1: Goals and actions for evolutionarily informed coral conservation.
Fig. 2: Managing across thermal gradients to facilitate evolutionary adaptation.

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Acknowledgements

This research was made possible by funding from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and The Nature Conservancy.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Coral Reef Alliance, San Francisco, CA, USA

    Madhavi A. Colton, Michael M. Webster & Helen E. Fox

  2. Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, Kaneʻohe, HI, USA

    Lisa C. McManus

  3. Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA

    Lisa C. McManus, Daniel L. Forrest, E. W. Tekwa & Malin L. Pinsky

  4. School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Daniel E. Schindler, Timothy E. Essington, Lukas B. DeFilippo & Timothy E. Walsworth

  5. School of Biological Sciences, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

    Peter J. Mumby

  6. Department of Biology, Hopkins Marine Station, Stanford University, Pacific Grove, CA, USA

    Stephen R. Palumbi

  7. Department of Environmental Studies, New York University, New York, NY, USA

    Michael M. Webster

  8. Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada

    Daniel L. Forrest

  9. The Nature Conservancy, Caribbean Division, Coral Gables, FL, USA

    Steven R. Schill

  10. The Nature Conservancy, Hawaiʻi & Palmyra Program, Honolulu, HI, USA

    F. Joseph Pollock

  11. Pennsylvania State University, Department of Biology, University Park, PA, USA

    F. Joseph Pollock

  12. Resource Assessment and Conservation Engineering Division, NOAA Alaska Fisheries Science Center, Seattle, WA, USA

    Lukas B. DeFilippo

  13. Department of Zoology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada

    E. W. Tekwa

  14. Department of Watershed Sciences and The Ecology Center, Utah State University, Logan, UT, USA

    Timothy E. Walsworth

Authors
  1. Madhavi A. Colton
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  2. Lisa C. McManus
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  8. Helen E. Fox
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  9. Daniel L. Forrest
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  13. E. W. Tekwa
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  14. Timothy E. Walsworth
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  15. Malin L. Pinsky
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Contributions

M.C. conceptualized and wrote the manuscript, with input from all authors. All authors edited the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Madhavi A. Colton.

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Colton, M.A., McManus, L.C., Schindler, D.E. et al. Coral conservation in a warming world must harness evolutionary adaptation. Nat Ecol Evol 6, 1405–1407 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-022-01854-4

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