Abstract
Coral bleaching can be induced by many different stressors, however, the most common cause of mass bleaching in the field is higher than average sea surface temperatures (SST). Here, we describe an unusual bleaching event that followed very calm sea conditions combined with higher than average SST. Patterns of mortality differed from typical bleaching in four ways: 1) mortality was very rapid; 2) a different suite of species were most affected; 3) tissue mortality in Acropora spp. was often restricted to the center of the colony; 4) the event occurred early in summer. The two weeks prior to the event included 8 days where the average wind speed was less than 3 ms -1. In addition, SSTs in the weeks preceding and during the event were 1.0-1.5°C higher than the mean for the last 30 years. We hypothesize that this unusual bleaching event was caused by anoxia resulting from a lack of water movement induced by low wind speeds combined with high SST.
Highlights
Coral bleaching is a generalized response that can be induced by many different stressors[1,2,3]
Bleaching and tissue mortality were generally restricted to the center of colonies in the locally abundant species Acropora digitifera and A. hyacinthus (Figure 1B, C, D)
Date wind speed (m/s) wind direction wind speed (m/s). This bleaching event was different to typical thermal bleaching in a number of important ways
Summary
Coral bleaching is a generalized response that can be induced by many different stressors[1,2,3]. Whilst the most common cause of large scale bleaching on coral reefs is unusually high sea surface temperatures (SSTs)[4,5], prolonged periods of calm weather have been associated with mass bleaching events in the. Experimental work has confirmed that low water flow can exacerbate thermal bleaching[11,12]. The ecology of thermal coral bleaching in response to high SSTs is reasonably well documented. Species vary in their susceptibility to thermal bleaching[14,15], resulting in a predicable hierarchy of response[16,17]
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