After scouring the periodical section of the library looking for any journal article about coral reefs, I came across “Bright spots among the world’s coral reefs.” This article is about the 39 researcher who came up with new approach of finding the best coral reef conservation methods that involve studying the unusually prosperous and the much-degraded coral reef sites, and the relationship socioeconomic drivers have with those sites. This is a correlational study. The researchers obtained data from over 2,500 sites and discovered 15 bright spot sites that are two standard deviations above the expected, and 35 dark spot sites that are two standard deviations below the expected. The Bayesian hierarchical model was used to compile all the data together. Interestingly, not all the bright spots were where the researcher expected. I believed that the flourishing coral reefs would be in isolated with strict fishing laws and little human interactions, but I am wrong because the places where bright spots and humans interact have solid sociocultural institutions which involves cultural taboos and marine tenure, above average local engagement in the maintenance and management of the coast and depend on coastal resources. Also, those areas have good environmental conditions, like deep water refuges. All that was discovered using statistics and surveying local experts at many different locations and surveying data providers. Out of the 18 socioeconomic drivers, the most influential are high compliance reserve, local population growth and human development index. The places with higher human development index have better maintained reefs because those locations are wealthier. All of this is shown on stacked bar graphs for different categories involving bright, average and dark spots using p-values. What can be taken away from this research is using the data found about the relationship between socioeconomic drivers and these outlier spots can inform governments, NGOs and investors the best ways to conserve coral reefs in the most populated by humans and the least. Also, which socioeconomic drivers need to be decreased to positively influence the shape of coral reefs.

Cinner, Joshua E, Cindy Huchery, M. Aaron MacNeil, Nicholas A.J. Graham, Tim R. McClanahan, Joseph Maina, Eva Maire, John N. Kittinger, Christina C. Hicks, Camilo Mora, Edward H. Allison, Stephanie D’Agata, Andrew Hoey, David A. Feary, Larry Crowder, Ivor D. Williams, Michel Kulbicki, Laurent Vigliola, Laurent Wantiez, Graham Edgar, Rick D. Stuart-Smith, Stuart A. Sandin, Alison L. Green, Marah J. Hardt, Maria Beger, Alan Friedlander, Stuart J. Campbell, Katharine E. Holmes, Shaun K. Wilson, Eran Brokovich, Andrew J. Brooks, Juan J. Cruz-Motta, David J. Booth, Pascale Chabanet, Charlie Gough, Mark Tupper, Sebastian C. A. Ferse, U. Rashid Sumaila & David Mouillot. “Bright spots among the world’s coral reefs.” Nature 534, no. 3 (July 2016): 416-419.