Sailing into the past: Nautical charts reveal changes over 160 years in the largest reef complex in the South Atlantic Ocean

摘要

Coral reefs are in global decline due to unprecedented anthropogenic threats that have escalated andaccumulated over decades to centuries. In order to assess the magnitude and drivers of changes on reefs, it is necessary to reconstruct the history of changes of these ecosystems over this longer time scale. Wecompiled and assessed historical records of naturalists that visited Abrolhos reefs over the last 202 years, and compared a 160-year-old nautical chart with modern charts to quantify losses in the spatial extentof coastal reefs in the Abrolhos Bank, Brazil. We found a 28 loss in the overall spatial extent of inshorereefs, with some areas experiencing declines up to 49 over the past 160 years. Such reefs with moredramatic changes (Guaratibas reefs) are the closest to the coast (similar to 7 km), where local impacts such asthe past extraction of coral for lime since the 19thcentury, as well as increased coastal sedimentationand siltation due to deforestation are concentrated and that, combined, may have caused the observeddecline. Collectively, this set of historical information captures coral reef changes over time, and helpsupdate conservation and restoration goals for the Abrolhos reefs seascape. (c) 2022 Associac, similar to ao Brasileira de Ci encia Ecol ' ogica e Conservac, similar to ao. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is anopen access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).