This primarily mesophotic species is widely distributed and rare. It may be impacted by threats to corals such as severe bleaching events but a global-level decline approaching 30% over the past three generations and the future three generations is not suspected at this time. It is listed as Least Concern with a recommendation to research impacts of threats to deeper/mesophotic coral species.

This species is found in the central Indo-Pacific, southeast China Sea, the oceanic west Pacific, Indonesia, Malaysia (Sabah), Brunei, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Palau, Micronesia, the Solomon Islands, Truk (Wallace et al. 2001, Turak and DeVantier 2005, Wallace et al. 2012, DeVantier and Turak 2017, Muir and Pichon 2019, Robert et al. 2019, Loya et al. 2019, DeVantier et al. 2020), Scott Reef off northwest Australia and the northern Great Barrier Reef (iDigBio online database accessed January 2023).

The depth range is 10-70 m but primarily occurs from 30-70 m (Wallace 1999, Z. Richards pers. comm. 2008).

This species is rare (DeVantier and Turak 2017). It occurs mainly on reef slopes below 30 m, in the mesophotic zone. Although it can be considered a mesophotic specialist (Muir and Pichon 2019), this species also occurs rarely at shallower depths in lagoonal reefs under particular environmental conditions such as low-light where it can be a dominant species (e.g. Pohnpei lagoon, Muir and Wallace 2016).

There is no species specific population information available. However, there is evidence that overall coral reef habitat has declined, and Acropora species are particularly susceptible to bleaching, disease, and other threats (Hoogenboom et al. 2017).

This species is mainly found on protected reef slopes deeper than 30 m, on reef walls (Wallace 1999), on submerged shelf reefs 10-70 m, and on shipwrecks (Z. Richards pers. comm. 2008). It has also been found in shallow waters of a southwest lagoon site in Pohnpei (Micronesia), in an environment characterized by brownish waters with low light attributed to dissolved tannins coming from extensive development of mangrove forests in the adjacent coast (Muir and Wallace 2016). 

The age at first maturity of most Acropora species is typically 4 years; however, it can vary between 3 and 8 years (Harrison and Wallace 1990, Iwao et al. 2010, Baria et al. 2012, Montoya-Maya et al. 2014, Ligson and Cabaitan 2021). Based on average sizes and growth rates, we also infer that the average length of one generation is 10 years. Longevity is not known, but is likely to be greater than 10 years. Therefore, any population decline rates estimated for the purposes of this Red List assessment are measured over a time period of 30 years.

This is a deeper water species that may not be as prone to bleaching and disease as other Acropora species. Members of this genus have a low resistance and low tolerance to bleaching and disease, and are slow to recover. Bleaching events in the range of occurrence of this species have been reported for the years 1998 (Wilkinson 1998), 2010 and 2016-2017, and 2020 (Kimura et al. 2014, Whouthuyzen et al. 2017, Rowley et al. 2018, Souter et al. 2021). Populations of Acropora species have been observed in continuous decline across their range of occurrence, and it is projected that populations may continue to decrease if bleaching events occur more frequently and more severely over the next two decades (Hughes et al. 2018).

In general, the major threat to corals is global climate change, in particular, temperature extremes leading to bleaching and increased susceptibility to disease, increased severity of ENSO events and storms, and ocean acidification (Hoegh-Guldberg et al. 2007, Hughes et al. 2017; 2018; 2019). Bleaching can lead to mortality and a reduction in both coral cover and effective population sizes. It also disrupts coral reproduction. Regional coral extinction events following thermally anomalous events are increasingly reported worldwide (Sheppard et al. 2020, Muir et al. 2021, Richards et al. 2021). In addition, climate change is predicted to lead to an increased severity of ENSO events and storm intensity, and longer-term changes in ocean chemistry impacting calcification, along with an increase in the severity of flood and fire events impacting catchments. Acropora species have, in general, high bleaching susceptibility as it has been observed in multiple assessments in the Great Barrier Reef (Muir et al. 2021, Richards et al. 2021).

This species has a branching-plate growth form and may be susceptible to predation by crown-of-thorns seastar. Crown-of-thorns (COTS) (Acanthaster spp.) are found throughout the Pacific and Indian Oceans and the Red Sea. Crown-of-thorns are voracious predators of reef-building corals, with a preference for branching and tabular corals such as Acropora species. Populations of the crown-of-thorns starfish have greatly increased since the 1970s and have been known to consume large areas of coral reef habitat. Increased breakouts of COTS has become a major threat to some species, and have contributed to the overall decline and reef destruction in the Indo-Pacific region. The effects of such an outbreak include the reduction of abundance and surface cover of living coral, reduction of species diversity and composition, and overall reduction in habitat area. Crown-of-thorn outbreaks are particularly concerning in coral communities that are recovering from disturbances such as coral bleaching as feeding on remnant survivors and juveniles can further inhibit community recovery (Haywood et al. 2019). 

Coral disease has emerged as a serious threat to coral reefs worldwide and a major cause of reef deterioration (Weil et al. 2006). The numbers of diseases and coral species affected, as well as the distribution of diseases have all increased dramatically within the last two decades (Porter et al. 2001, Green and Bruckner 2000, Sutherland et al. 2004, Weil 2004). Coral disease epizootics have resulted in significant losses of coral cover and were implicated in the dramatic decline of acroporids in the Florida Keys (Aronson and Precht 2001, Porter et al. 2001, Patterson et al. 2002). In the Indo-Pacific, disease is also on the rise with disease outbreaks recently reported from the Great Barrier Reef (Willis et al. 2004, Haapkyla et al. 2013), Indonesia (Haapkyla et al. 2007, Subhan et al. 2020), Thailand (Lamb et al. 2014), Marshall Islands (Jacobson 2006), Micronesia (Myers and Raymundo 2009), American Samoa (Work and Rameyer 2005), and the northwestern Hawaiian Islands (Aeby et al. 2006), the Cocos (Keeling) Islands (Preston and Richards 2021), the Maldives (Montano et al. 2015), and the Persian Gulf (Aeby et al. 2020). Increased coral disease levels on the GBR were correlated with increased ocean temperatures (Boyett et al. 2007, Howells et al. 2020) supporting the prediction that disease levels will be increasing with higher sea surface temperatures. As environmental conditions continue to change, it is predicted that conditions on temperate reefs will become favourable for coral diseases and thermodependent bacteria (Bally and Garrabou 2007, Brodnicke et al. 2019) and the geographical range of tropical coral diseases will extend (Vergés et al. 2019). 

Ocean acidification represents a key threat to coral reefs by reducing the calcification rate of framework builders (Langdon et al. 2000). Acidification may act in synergy with global warming to increase bleaching response and decrease productivity in corals (Anthony et al. 2008). Ocean acidification has also been shown to negatively affect reproduction and multiple early developmental stages of corals that are critical to reef persistence and resilience (Albright 2011, Webster et al. 2013).

Localized threats to corals include fisheries, human development (industry, settlement, tourism, and transportation), changes in native species dynamics (competitors, predators, pathogens and parasites), invasive species (competitors, predators, pathogens and parasites), dynamite fishing, chemical fishing, pollution from agriculture and industry, domestic pollution, sedimentation, and human recreation and tourism activities. The severity of these combined threats to the global population of each individual species is not known.

All stony corals are listed on CITES Appendix II. All stony corals (Scleractinia) fall under Annex B of the European Union Wildlife Trade Regulations (EU 2019), and have done so since 1997. Furthermore, several countries (India, Israel, Somalia, Djibouti, Solomon Islands and the Philippines) at various stages have banned either the trade or export of CITES II listed species, which includes all stony corals, since 1999 (UNEP 2020). Fiji, Indonesia and Malaysia currently (2020) have quotas for the number of wild Acropora species in general for export, which range from 3,000 to 377,500 pieces per annum depending on the country (UNEP-WCMC 2020).