Anthropogenic stressors such as coastal development, dynamite fishing, cyanide fishing, overexploitation of resources and marine pollution, have left 58% percent of the world's reefs under threat.
The fishing sector in Argentina had been declining for years as a result of overexploitation and high discard rates; the important Argentine hake catch in particular had declined by around 70% since the mid-1990s.
"Tridacna costata may be the earliest example of marine overexploitation," said researcher Claudio Richter, a marine ecologist at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven, Germany.