Robust Ghost Pipefish

There are no known major threats to this species. But, coral reefs in Southeast Asia are threatened by destructive fishing practices (e.g. poison fishing, blast fishing), coastal development, pollution (e.g. oil spills, agricultural run-off), sedimentation, overfishing, and climate change (Burke et al. 2002, Chan and Hodgson 2017, Selgrath et al. 2018). Coral reefs within the Coral Triangle are also projected to continue declining in the future from increases in ocean temperature and acidification (Cornwall et al. 2021, McManus et al. 2020). This species occurs in seven of the ten regions denoted by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network. These seven regions contribute to over 88.9% of global coral reefs and in 2020 were all reported to be under long-term decline, where region-specific loss ranged from 0.1 to 8.7% since 2005 (Souter et al. 2021).

Seagrass beds are declining globally (Waycott et al. 2009). Water quality (e.g., algal blooms, ocean acidification, sedimentation) and coastal development (e.g., port construction, land-use change, dredging) are the most well-attributed drivers of seagrass declines (Dunic et al. 2021). Hydrology (e.g., coastal erosion, flooding), storms, poor land management, and aquaculture are other threats to global seagrass beds (Dunic et al. 2021, Van Niekerk et al. 2019). Seagrass beds may also be threatened by higher temperatures from climate change, for example, by increasing grazing pressures from poleward shifts in tropical herbivores (Duarte et al. 2018). From 1880 to 2016, global seagrass extent is estimated to have declined by 19.1% (Dunic et al. 2021). Regional net change in seagrass area for this species' distribution exhibit declines ranging from 16.2 to 32.3% between 1900 and 2016 (Dunic et al. 2021).