Coral Reef Resilience

Dear Colleagues,

The future of coral reefs remains uncertain. Will they be eliminated by anthropogenic pressure and climate change impacts or will they persist as altered states in new global distribution patterns? Studies of coral reef resilience can help to provide a deeper understanding of reef response. 

The pace of research in coral reef resilience has steadily gained momentum. In the latter half of the 1990s, attention was focused on reef degradation caused by over-exploitation and destructive harvesting methods. This gradually shifted to how coral reefs respond to a changing environment caused by coastal urbanization and climate change pressures. Are coral reefs fragile or resilient to these constant but permanent changes and what are the implications for management strategies? What are the implications of high latitude migration of coral and reef-related species? How much do we know of mesophotic reefs and can they serve as reef habitat refugia. 

Research at all levels from molecular to community and habitat responses, as well as spatially extensive and/or long-term monitoring data to detect and understand specific trends relevant to novel management approaches, will remain important. We encourage you to share your findings by contributing to this special volume. If ten or more articles are accepted for publication after the usual review process, a hard copy of the volume will be printed. 

Prof. Loke Ming Chou
Dr. Danwei Huang
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Journal of Marine Science and Engineering is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.