The fringes of communities are hotbeds of creativity – even for corals. A new study shows that Caribbean corals living on the outskirts of a reef evolve novel traits much faster than those at its heart. The findings suggest that conservation efforts for endangered corals might be missing a trick. The study is one of the few to consider the rate of evolution as a factor for conservation, rather than simply the number of species in an ecosystem. "Evolution is the key to survival for life on Earth," says Pandolofi, so it makes sense to assess an ecosystem by its evolutionary potential rather than just the number of species it holds. "It's fantastic," says Chris Fulton, an evolutionary marine biologist at the Australian National University, Canberra, who was not involved in the study. "Rather than being marginal players battling to survive, the study shows that corals living on the fringe are powerhouses of diversity.

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