Researchers are reconstructing the climatic history of ancient coral reefs to predict the impact of climate change on modern-day reef ecosystems.
Coral reefs are diverse shallow-water ecosystems that support about 25 % of all marine life. Since reefs are extremely sensitive to environmental disturbance, they can be used to predict how biologically diverse marine ecosystems will respond to human-induced climate change.
Further details:
http://cordis.europa.eu