Abstract
Coral reefs are among the most biodiverse ecosystems on Earth, yet over half have been lost in the past four decades. Restoration efforts, such as marine protected areas and reef rehabilitation, are most effective when targeted at sites with potential for recovery. A key challenge is distinguishing reefs that are naturally depauperate from those degraded by anthropogenic stress—an assessment difficult to achieve with traditional coral monitoring, which rarely extends beyond a decade. Bioindicators offer a solution for evaluating reef health over longer timescales, and benthic foraminifera have shown particular promise in this regard. This dataset comprises counts of benthic foraminifera from samples collected as part of the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation Global Reef Expedition. Spanning over 1,000 reefs across 15 countries in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans, the dataset covers a wide gradient of environmental conditions, human impacts, and reef potential. These data were used to develop new foraminiferal bioindicators for reef health assessment. By expanding the geographic scope of such indicators, this dataset supports the standardization of foraminiferal tools for global coral reef conservation and targeted restoration efforts.