Troublingly, because deep reefs are more difficult to study, they are rarely included in conservation discussions and actions, despite harbouring unique biodiversity not found on shallow reefs. Despite these sobering findings, the new insights from the study suggest solutions that could be effective in reducing the amount of plastic pollution reaching deeper reefs. ‘Coral reefs are losing the capacity to sustain their fundamental ecosystem functions, with plastic pollution adding to the threats from climate change and overfishing. As the world moves towards a global treaty to tackle plastic pollution, understanding its distribution and drivers provides key information to help design strategies needed to address this ubiquitous threat’ concluded Dr Stefanoudis. The study ‘Plastic pollution on the world’s coral reefs’ has been published in Nature.
