New Death Knell for Caribbean Corals

In 1983-1984, a mass mortality event decimated populations of the keystone reef herbivore, Diadema antillarum, the Longspine Sea Urchin, in the Tropical Western Atlantic and Caribbean. In 2022, a second mass mortality event swept the U.S. Virgin Islands and the many areas of the Caribbean, reducing the already sparse D. antillarum population by an additional 98 percent.