1. Biodiversity: Present, Past, Future? Nancy Knowlton National Museum of Natural History Smithsonian Institution

2. Marine Biodiversity Crisis Natural Disturbances + People CO 2 Nutrients Toxics Sediments Aliens Anything Longer or Taller than 5 cm

3. 1 - 9 million reef species in total (?) 1/4 of all marine species (?) Most are rare Coral Reefs : “Rainforests of the Sea” ~1000 coral species

4. 22 dead coral heads ~ 20% of total European diversity

5. DISCOVERY BAY, JAMAICA IN 1975 GONE and not just in Jamaica Caribbean-wide: 80% decline in 30 years Pacific on same trajectory

6. July 2008 At Risk ? OK

7. Business as usual = no reefs by 2050 Remember: CO 2 lasts for centuries in the atmosphere Scenarios for the future

8. Pristine Human Dominated Wasteland Biodiversity and Ecosystem Function ? ? Where is what being lost?

9. Synergies between coral cover and diversity fish

10. Jackson et al. 2001 PRISTINEDISTURBED Overfishing and Trophic Cascades Entire food webs are affected Jellyfish & Bacteria (aka “the rise of slime”) X X X

11. Without management even a few people can have substantial impacts on coral reefs through fishing and sewage Kingman (US) pop. 0 Palmyra (US) pop. ~10 Tabuaeran (KR) pop. ~ 2000 Kirimati (KR) pop. ~ 6000 Hawaii Australia Time Machine Research

12. Bacteria Viruses Other microbes Altered Communities Bottom cover Increasing human influence

13. Reduced Resilience Increasing human influence

14. California Condor Conservation Strategies Not a Realistic Option for Most Species, What Do We Do?

15. Build Ecological Resilience Reduce Local Impacts so Reefs Can Recover from Impacts We Can’t Control 150 years

16. Marine Protected Areas as One Tool for Building Resilience Great Barrier Reef, Australia Two of the World’s Largest MPAs Protect Coral Reefs But less than 2% of reefs are protected globally MPAs alone are not enough

17. ? Provides Insurance, Buys Time Short Term/Local Scale: Control fishing pressure Improve water quality Longer Term/Global Scale: Reduce CO2 emissions Resilience Strategies

18. “First let’s concentrate on water. Then we’ll worry about krill” If We Fail….