Researchers tabulate disturbing changes and disappearance in biodiversity in Southern Taiwan coral reefs over last 26 years

摘要

Agroup of twelve researchers from Taiwan, Malaysia and Australia, including several members of Academia Sinica's Biodiversity Research Center have found that over the past 26 years the composition of the coral reefs off Kenting in South Taiwan has changed, and their biodiversity has declined. Their findings were published online in the scholarly journal PLoS One. The researchers found that the coral reefs have been affected by six typhoons and two coral bleaching events over the past 26 years. Coralsfrom the genera Acropora and Montipora have almost disappeared from the reefs, whereas corals belonging to genera Favia and Heliopora have maintained their presence at steady levels. Massive corals such as Porites have increased in abundance, whereas, hard coral species in particular havedeclined in abundance to less than half over the last quarter of a century, indicating that the health of the coral reefs is in jeopardy and diverse reef assemblage is declining.