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Description |
Geographic Range [top]
Range Description: This species occurs in the south-west and northern Indian Ocean, the central Indo-Pacific, Southeast Asia, Japan and the East China Sea, and the oceanic west Pacific. Found in the Great Barrier Reef (Fenner pers. comm.), Papau New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands (Turak pers. comm.).
Countries occurrence:
Native:
Australia; British Indian Ocean Territory; Cambodia; Guam; India; Indonesia; Japan; Malaysia; Maldives; Mauritius; Micronesia, Federated States of ; Northern Mariana Islands; Palau; Papua New Guinea; Philippines; Seychelles; Singapore; Solomon Islands; Sri Lanka; Taiwan, Province of China; Thailand; Viet Nam
FAO Marine Fishing Areas:
Native:
Indian Ocean – western; Indian Ocean – eastern; Pacific – western central; Pacific – northwest
Additional data:
? Lower depth limit (metres): 25
? Upper depth limit (metres): 1
Range Map: Click here to open the map viewer and explore range.
Population [top]
Population: This is an uncommon species.
There is no species specific population information available for this species. However, there is evidence that overall coral reef habitat has declined globally.
The age of first maturity of most reef building corals is typically three to eight years (Wallace 1999) and therefore we assume that average age of mature individuals is greater than eight years. Furthermore, based on average sizes and growth rates, we assume that average generation length is 10 years, unless otherwise stated. Total longevity is not known, but likely to be more than ten years. Therefore any population decline rates for the Red List assessment are measured over at least 30 years. See the Supplementary Material for further details on population decline and generation length estimates.
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Current Population Trend: Decreasing
Additional data:
? Population severely fragmented: No
Habitat and Ecology [top]
Habitat and Ecology: This species occurs on shallow reefs. It occurs on upper reef slopes. This species is found from 1-25 m.
General genus information: throughout its range, Acropora can be found on any stretch of reef and is often the dominant coral, especially along the reef front. Staghorn and plate forms flourish in sheltered areas, whereas clusters and semi-massive types can withstand more exposed conditions. Species that occur from the reef top to the reef slope become gradually more flattened with depth (Wood 1983).
Systems: Marine
Threats [top]
Major Threat(s): Members of this genus have a low resistance and low tolerance to bleaching and disease, and are slow to recover.
Acanthaster planci, the crown-of-thorns starfish, has been observed preferentially preying upon corals of the genus Acropora (Colgan 1987). Crown-of-thorns starfish (COTS) (Acanthaster planci) are found throughout the Pacific and Indian Oceans, and the Red Sea. These starfish voracious predators of reef-building corals, with a preference for branching and tabular corals such as Acropora species. Populations of the crown-of-thorns starfish have greatly increased since the 1970s and have been known to wipe out large areas of coral reef habitat. Increased breakouts of COTS has become a major threat to some species, and have contributed to the overall decline and reef destruction in the Indo-Pacific region. The effects of such an outbreak include the reduction of abundance and surface cover of living coral, reduction of species diversity and composition, and overall reduction in habitat area.
In general, the major threat to corals is global climate change, in particular, temperature extremes leading to bleaching and increased susceptibility to disease, increased severity of ENSO events and storms, and ocean acidification.
Coral disease has emerged as a serious threat to coral reefs worldwide and a major cause of reef deterioration (Weil et al. 2006). The numbers of diseases and coral species affected, as well as the distribution of diseases have all increased dramatically within the last decade (Porter et al. 2001, Green and Bruckner 2000, Sutherland et al. 2004, Weil 2004). Coral disease epizootics have resulted in significant losses of coral cover and were implicated in the dramatic decline of acroporids in the Florida Keys (Aronson and Precht 2001, Porter et al. 2001, Patterson et al. 2002). In the Indo-Pacific, disease is also on the rise with disease outbreaks recently reported from the Great Barrier Reef (Willis et al. 2004), Marshall Islands (Jacobson 2006) and the northwestern Hawaiian Islands (Aeby 2006). Increased coral disease levels on the GBR were correlated with increased ocean temperatures (Willis et al. 2007) supporting the prediction that disease levels will be increasing with higher sea surface temperatures. Escalating anthropogenic stressors combined with the threats associated with global climate change of increases in coral disease, frequency and duration of coral bleaching and ocean acidification place coral reefs in the Indo-Pacific at high risk of collapse.
Localized threats to corals include fisheries, human development (industry, settlement, tourism, and transportation), changes in native species dynamics (competitors, predators, pathogens and parasites), invasive species (competitors, predators, pathogens and parasites), dynamite fishing, chemical fishing, pollution from agriculture and industry, domestic pollution, sedimentation, and human recreation and tourism activities.
The severity of these combined threats to the global population of each individual species is not known.
Conservation Actions [top]
Conservation Actions: All corals are listed on CITES Appendix II. Parts of the species’ range fall within Marine Protected Areas.
Recommended measures for conserving this species include research in taxonomy, population, abundance and trends, ecology and habitat status, threats and resilience to threats, restoration action; identification, establishment and management of new protected areas; expansion of protected areas; recovery management; and disease, pathogen and parasite management.
Citation: Aeby, G., Delbeek, J.T., Lovell, E.R., Richards, Z.T., Reboton, C. & Bass, D. 2014. Acropora bifurcata. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2014: e.T133658A54302913. http://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2014-1.RLTS.T133658A54302913.en. Downloaded on 12 September 2018.
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