Coral reef decline. Numerous changes in the ocean environment are causing declines in the numbers of live corals. In the Caribbean, for example, there has been a sharp drop in the number of live corals over a period of three decades.

[After L. Alvarez-Filip, et al., Region-wide temporal and spatial variation in Caribbean reef architecture: Is coral cover the whole story? Global Change Biology 17 (2011): 2470–2477.]