The authors of this study ranked coral reef resilience factors based on their perceived importance by 28 coral reef experts and based on scientific evidence from a literature review. The top 11 factors for resilience management were determined to be: resistant coral species, temperature variability, nutrients (pollution), sedimentation, coral diversity, herbivore biomass, physical human impacts, coral disease, macroalgae, recruitment, and fishing pressure.
Upon testing these 11 factors on an Indonesian marine protected area, the authors conclude that they improve on other methods for characterizing resilience and priority sites. The authors also conclude that using a small, tailored set of factors for resilience assessments is a practical and effective method because there are only a few factors for which there is evidence of strong effects
Author: McClanahan, T.R., S.D. Donner, J.A. Maynard, M.A. MacNeil, N.A.H. Graham, J. Maina, A.C. Baker, J.B. Alemu, M. Beger, S.J. Campbell, E.S. Darling, C.M., Eakin, S.F. Heron, S.D. Jupiter, C.J. Lundquist, E. McLeod, P.J. Mumby, M.J. Paddack, E.R. Selig, and R. van Woesik
Year: 2012
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PLoS ONE 7(8): e42884. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0042884
