Established in 2025, the Center for Species Survival Corals (CSS Corals) is a partnership between the IUCN Species Survival Commission (SSC) and The Florida Aquarium dedicated to advancing the conservation of threatened coral species worldwide by serving as a focal point that connects scientific expertise, conservation planning, and coordinated action to improve the outlook for coral biodiversity.
Hosted by The Florida Aquarium, an internationally recognized leader in coral conservation, restoration, and reproduction, the Center supports the IUCN SSC's mission to conserve biodiversity by strengthening the Species Conservation Cycle for coral species. The CSS Corals works directly with the IUCN SSC Coral Specialist Group and its members to mobilize governments, aquariums, researchers, NGOs, and local communities.
Coral reefs are among the most biodiverse ecosystems on Earth, supporting approximately one-quarter of all marine species despite covering less than one percent of the ocean floor. Yet coral species face unprecedented pressures from climate change, ocean warming, disease, pollution, and other human impacts, requiring coordinated conservation efforts that extend beyond reef restoration to include species assessments, conservation planning, threat mitigation, ex situ conservation, and a truly global response.
The Center for Species Survival Corals works closely with the IUCN Species Survival Commission's Coral Specialist Group and partners worldwide to identify conservation priorities and accelerate actions to prevent coral species from going extinct.
Through the IUCN SSC Species Strategic Plan, the Center will: 1) Support IUCN Red List assessment processes to produce a comprehensive Global Coral Assessment, furthering our understanding of extinction risk across all major coral taxon groups. 2) Facilitate conservation planning for priority coral species and populations. 3) Advance integrated in situ and ex situ conservation approaches, including coral propagation, cryopreservation, assisted reproduction, and genetic resource management. 4) Convene expertise across aquariums, conservation organizations, research institutions, and governmental partners. 5) Build global capacity through training, technical exchange, and knowledge sharing. 6) Promote evidence-based conservation that translates scientific knowledge into measurable outcomes for coral species.
By connecting diverse partners and disciplines, the CSS Corals aims to strengthen the global response to the biodiversity crisis affecting coral species.
Coral conservation is about more than saving reefs in the ecosystem context. This unique conservation challenge must focus on the extraordinary diversity of coral at the species level, which together create and sustain some of Earth's richest ecosystems. Protecting this diversity is essential to the resilience of our oceans and the communities that depend on them.
The IUCN Red List is one of the best tools available to understand extinction risk at the species level, and on scales that are relevant to policy, legislative processes, and local or regional conservation efforts. To date, extinction risk assessments have been completed for shallow reef-building coral species, but ~5,000 species of corals that comprise functionally important components of the marine environment still remain Not Evaluated. These data are critically important in guiding conservation planning and strategic, coordinated action for at-risk species.
To better understand coral species status, threats, and necessary conservation measures that must be implemented to reduce extinction risk, the CSS Corals intends to help facilitate a Global Coral Assessment alongside the Coral Specialist Group, for the first time establishing a baseline understanding of extinction risk across all coral taxa. This massive effort will require detailed consideration of the data sources that are used in estimating extinction risk for corals, the identification of new and emerging technologies that can supplement existing datasets, and the development of standardised methodologies so that extinction risk is comparable across major taxon groups and ecosystem types.
The loss of coral biodiversity is a truly global challenge with risks, threats, and consequences that span geopolitical boundaries. To prevent it, our global response must be scaled to meet the challenge that lies in front of us, and our collective actions must be coordinated, strategic, and grounded in evidence-based data. The CSS Corals intends to serve a convening and capacity-building role across the global community of stakeholders to ensure that our networks are active, representative, and appropriately scaled and resourced.
The CSS Corals will equip relevant stakeholders through training to support a large network fluent in the application of tools like the IUCN Red List and Conservation Planning methodologies. Furthermore, it will serve as a convener and facilitator to build consensus across the IUCN SSC, zoo and aquarium community, academia, NGO, governmental, and local community sectors, thereby supporting a robust and diverse network of actors. By establishing a national focal point network and expanding the Coral Specialist Group’s membership, we will ensure that global-level analysis translates into national and regional-level policy and action, supporting a seamless advancement of species within the SSC’s Conservation Cycle. Tapping into existing action consortiums for coral conservation will leverage and mobilise existing resources, expertise, and organizational willpower to act and demonstrate the impact of globally cohesive conservation interventions.
A major impediment to understanding extinction risk is the lack of available data, typically manifesting in a high incidence of Data Deficiency in the IUCN Red List process. The CSS Corals intends to highlight the importance of this Red List category in driving applied research for DD species as they are identified through assessment processes. By mobilising research interest and resources in these understudied species, we build upon our global understanding of coral extinction risk, which is often related to a limited understanding of global distribution, population status and size, basic ecology and life history, and the threats that may be contributing to their decline.
We are committed to ensuring that every threatened species of coral is covered under an appropriate conservation action plan, whether operating at localised, national, or global scales. In alignment with the Conservation Planning Specialist Group’s principles, these action plans must connect in-situ and ex-situ efforts and they must be consensus-built alongside all relevant stakeholders. We will achieve this both through single-species planning processes and multi-species methodologies, ultimately resulting in a compendium of species-relevant conservation plans that can be acted upon. Additionally, we will track collective effort surrounding global coral conservation and identify gaps where additional efforts are necessary to prevent species extinction.
Senior Vice President of Conservation
Dr. Debi Luke serves as Senior Vice President of Conservation at The Florida Aquarium and is an internationally recognized conservation leader with more than 30 years of experience advancing marine and environmental conservation. Debi earned her master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of South Florida, where her research integrated cognitive neuroscience and marine biology to investigate manatee sensory biology. Her groundbreaking, peer-reviewed research advanced scientific understanding of how manatees perceive and interact with their environment. Across her career, Debi has focused on translating science into action—building partnerships, developing conservation programs, and mobilizing organizations and communities to create lasting benefits for wildlife, habitats, and people. Debi oversees the Aquarium’s local, regional, and international conservation portfolio, strategically aligning initiatives to capitalize on staff expertise, strengthen partnerships, and maximize measurable conservation impact. Her portfolio includes oversight of the Aquarium’s IUCN Center for Species Survival Corals and its internationally recognized coral and sea turtle conservation programs.
EXPERTISE: Species conservation action, Species conservation science
Manager
Tim’s role as Manager oversees the strategy and operation of the center and is responsible for driving global outcomes for coral conservation. Tim earned an M.S. in Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences from the University of Florida’s Tropical Aquaculture Laboratory, where he focused on tropical invasion ecology in Florida and the Gulf of Mexico. Working in collaboration with the SSC Coral Specialist Group and the IUCN’s Biodiversity Assessment and Knowledge Team, Tim plays a vital coordination role in the Global Coral Assessment. Tim has been directly involved in numerous risk assessment processes over the years, both to mitigate the impacts of species invasions and identify extinction risk for species of conservation concern. He has been actively engaged in the IUCN’s SSC for nearly a decade, helped to lead the development of the CSS Network in partnership with the SSC Chair’s Office, and has experience acting across the SSC’s Assess-Plan-Act Conservation Cycle. He credits his passion for aquatic conservation to an early interest in aquarium keeping and actively supports collaboration at the nexus of science, industry, public aquaria, and hobbyist communities.
EXPERTISE: Species conservation science
