Turning the tide of parachute science.

Parachute science is the practice whereby international scientists, typically from higher-income countries, conduct field studies in another country, typically of lower income, and then complete the research in their home country without any further effective communication and engagement with others from that nation. It creates dependency on external expertise, does not address local research needs, and hinders local research efforts. As global hotspots of marine biodiversity, lower-income nations in the tropics have for too long been the subject of inequitable and unfair research practices.

Status and recent trends in coral reefs of the Philippines.

Concern about the condition of Philippine coral reefs has prompted a recent reassessment of the status of the nation's reefs, the results of which are reported here. This paper presents the largest updated dataset on Philippine coral cover and generic diversity. The dataset was obtained from equally-sized sampling stations on fore-reef slopes of fringing reefs in six biogeographic regions using identical methods.

Correction: Adding insult to injury: Ship groundings are associated with coral disease in a pristine reef.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.

Adding insult to injury: Ship groundings are associated with coral disease in a pristine reef.

In 2013, the remote Tubbataha Reef UNESCO World Heritage Site, in the western Philippines, experienced two ship groundings within four months: the USS Guardian (USSG), a US military vessel, and the Min Ping Yu (MPY), an illegal Chinese fishing vessel. Here, we present the results of coral disease assessments completed two years post-grounding and recovery patterns monitored annually within these grounding sites. Site assessments were undertaken in three distinct zones: 'ground zero', where reef was scoured to its limestone base by direct ship impact; the 'impact border', containing surviving upright but damaged, abraded and fragmented colonies injured during ship movement; and undamaged 'control' sites, remote from the ship groundings but located on the same atoll.

Correction: Resurrecting a subgenus to genus: molecular phylogeny of and (order Scleractinia; family Euphylliidae; clade V).

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.7717/peerj.4074.