Latest Tim R. McClanahan Stories

Research identifies 8 factors that can alert managers to the threat of overfishing in otherwise healthy-looking reefs Coral reefs that have lots of corals and appear healthy may, in fact, be heading toward collapse, according to a study published by the Wildlife Conservation Society and other groups. Using data from coral reef systems across the western Indian Ocean, an international team of researchers identified how overfishing creates a series of at least eight big changes on reefs...

Fish communities in the 21st Century live fast and die young. That's the main finding of a recent study by researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society who compared fish recently caught in coastal Kenya with the bones of fish contained in ancient Swahili refuse heaps in order to understand how to rebuild the current fisheries.Of course, modern fish communities are not victims of reckless living, but of overfishing which has caused an ecosystem-level transition that may not be easily...

Wildlife Conservation Society researchers urge protection and management for Indian Ocean coral reefs most likely to persist into futureResearchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society have developed a "stress test" for coral reefs as a means of identifying and prioritizing areas that are most likely to survive bleaching events and other climate change factors. The researchers say that these "reefs of hope" are priorities for national and international management and...