User:Seacucumberqueue/draft article on coral reefs

Census of Coral Reef Ecosystems (CReefs) is a field project of the Census of Marine Life and an international cooperative effort to increase tropical taxonomic expertise, conduct a taxonomically diversified global census of coral reef ecosystems, and improve access to and unify coral reef ecosystem information scattered throughout the globe.

Coral reefs are considered as the most biologically diverse of all marine ecosystems, likely hosting tens of thousands of species - many of which remain undocumented. The combined effects of anthropogenic and environmental stressors are, however, increasing the vulnerability of coral reef ecosystems; climate change induced coral bleaching and disease, ocean acidification, sea-level rise, and changing storm tracks are threatening the loss of reef biodiversity before documentation is possible. To improve the resilience of coral reef biodiversity, and to effectively use ecosystem approaches to management, it is first necessary to understand existing biodiversity and changes over time. To this end, CReefs aims to: conduct a taxonomically diversified global census of coral reef ecosystems, increase tropical taxonomic knowledge, develop new, universal protocols, methods and tools and increase access to, and exchange of, coral reef data.

Instrumental in CReefs' data collection, have been the deployment of Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures (ARMS), which mimic reef complexity to attract and collect colonizing invertebrates for long-term monitoring reef diversity. More than 500 ARMS have been deployed throughout the Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic Oceans.

CReefs began in 2005 with the establishment of multi-agency partnership between Scripps Institution of Oceanography (UCSD), the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center, Coral Reef Ecosystem Division (NOAA PIFSC CRED). CReefs is led by Dr. Nancy Knowlton and Dr. Russell E. Brainard of the USA and Dr. Julian Caley of Australia.