Dear Author,

I am unable to make a decision because you have not addressed several of the comments of referee #2. I have selected "Reconsider after major revisions" because the electronic editorial office does not have an option to request the submission of a revised version of the reply to referees. I do not think that a major revision will be needed.

- I think that: "This could be of particular importance for “The Coral Triangle” in the Pacific Warm Pool region, a region of maximum biodiversity that is considered to include at least 75% of the world’s coral species (Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries, 2008)."

should be corrected as: "This could be of particular importance for “The Coral Triangle” in the Pacific Warm Pool region, a region of maximum biodiversity that is considered to include more than 75% of the world’s coral species (Veron et al., 2009)." Veron et al. (2009) is available here: http://dx.doi.org/10.3755/galaxea.11.91

- p20l10: "outlier" has a statistical meaning that probably does not apply here. May be "extremes"?

- I mentioned the issue of color palettes in my initial comment. Your maps seem OK in this respect but there are still two figures with red and green lines. See, among many other similar pleas, http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v510/n7505/full/510340e.html and alter the colors accordingly.

Regards,
Jean-Pierre Gattuso
BG editor