How might changing coral reefs reshape the benefits people receive from them?

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Coral reefs underpin ecosystem goods and services that contribute to the well-being of millions of people. However, tropical coral reefs in the Anthropocene are likely to function differently from reefs in the past. This perspective piece asks what the Anthropocene means for the provision of ecosystem services from coral reefs.

The authors first provide examples of provisioning, regulating, cultural and supporting services underpinned by coral reef ecosystems. They conclude that research on coral reef ecosystem services has lagged behind multidisciplinary advances in broader ecosystem services science, including explicit recognition that interactions between social and ecological systems underpin these services.

Drawing on tools from functional ecology, the authors outline how these social–ecological relationships can be incorporated into a mechanistic understanding of service provision, and how this could help anticipate future changes in coral reef ecosystem services. They also explore the emergence of novel reef ecosystem services, for example from tropicalized coastlines or changing technological connections to coral reefs. When services are understood as arising from social–ecological system dynamics, new services can emerge from aspects of the interactions between people and ecosystems.

This synthesis of the coral reef ecosystem services literature suggests that the field is poorly prepared to understand the changes in service provision anticipated in the Anthropocene. The authors call for a new research agenda that better connects reef functional ecology with ecosystem service provision. It should take more holistic approaches, recognizing that ecosystems and society co-produce these services. The possibility of novel configurations of ecosystem services needs further conceptual development and empirical assessment.

As with current ecosystem services, gains or losses will not affect all people equally and must be understood in the contexts in which they occur. Given uncertainty about the future of coral reefs in the Anthropocene, research on how benefits to people change will be especially important.

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