Coral reefs: bridging knowledge for resilience and action

Coral reef ecosystems are facing an unprecedented global crisis. Rapid ocean warming, marine heatwaves, ocean acidification, pollution, overexploitation and habitat degradation are driving coral reefs toward ecological thresholds that were once considered distant or unlikely. Against this backdrop, the European Coral Reef Symposium (ECRS) was held in Naples in 2024, bringing together more than 600 contributions spanning tropical, temperate, mesophotic and coldwater coral ecosystems (Table 1). The meeting, attended by 741 people from 55 countries, highlighted the urgency of integrating disciplines, ecosystems and scales to address the accelerating transformation of coral reef systems. The present collection presents a curated selection of papers arising from ECRS 2024. Together, these contributions reflect both the most active and innovative directions in contemporary coral reef research and a renewed focus on core ecological and biological processes that must be revitalized to support a holistic understanding of reef ecosystems.