Table 1 Eligibility criteria

Population

- All tropical reef-building coral species (hermatypic scleractinian species, Millepora species, Heliopora species and Tubipora species) living in the shallow and the mesophotic zones. All developmental stages are considered (mobile planula, fixed polyp), as well as all coral compartments including dinoflagellates symbionts “in hospite” and microbiome

- Cold-water or deep-water corals

- Ahermatypic corals

- Free-living dinoflagellates (not hosted as symbionts within corals)

- Studies conducted in coral reefs but not about corals (e.g. about coral reef fishes)

Exposure

- All geogenic (e.g. trace metals) and synthetic chemicals (e.g. diuron) for which the exposure concentration is known

- Exposure to a chemical alone or in combination with another chemical

- Studies assessing the impact of nutrients (e.g. nitrate) or eutrophication

- Studies assessing the impact of human activities (e.g. river discharge, distance to a dump or to an industrial effluent source, tourism) on corals without reference to specific chemicals

- Studies in which exposure to a chemical cannot be dissociated from other physical disturbances (e.g. sedimentation/macroparticles)

Comparator

- Studies comparing population exposed to chemicals and control population unexposed to chemicals

- Studies comparing population exposed to chemicals and population prior to exposure to chemicals (before/after)

- For chemicals dissolved in a solvent, exposition to the solvent only was considered as control unexposed population

- Studies comparing population exposed to a range of concentrations/levels of chemicals in the absence of an unexposed population in the experiment

Outcome

- All outcomes related to the health status of tropical reef-building corals, from the molecular (e.g. gene expression, enzyme activities) to the colony (e.g. photosynthesis, bleaching) and the population level (e.g. mortality rate)

- Studies assessing impacts on coral symbionts/microbiome

- Studies reporting evidence of ingestion, concentration or accumulation/uptake of chemicals (bioaccumulation)

Language

All articles written in English or French (in case a title or an abstract could not be found in English or French, it was directly screened on full-text)

Type of document

Journal article, book chapter, report, conference proceeding article, PhD or MSc thesis

Presentation, editorial material, letter or news item, conference or meeting abstract (i.e. very short summary), poster

Type of content

In-situ or ex-situ experimental studies

Observational studies (field surveys), reviews and meta-analyses, modelling studies without experimental data