Coral reefs around the world have degraded over the last half-century as evidenced by loss of live coral cover. This ubiquitous observation led to the establishment of long-term, ecological monitoring programs in several regions with sizable coral-reef resources. As part of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) John Wesley Powell Center for Analysis and Synthesis working group "Local-scale ecosystem resilience amid global-scale ocean change: the coral reef example," scientists gathered resultant data from four ...