Recovery of reef‐scale calcification following a bleaching event in Kāne'ohe Bay, Hawai'i

Abstract

AbstractIncreasing anthropogenic disturbances have driven declines of many coral‐dominated reef states, threatening critical ecosystem functions such as reef‐scale calcification and accretion. Few studies have investigated the effect of coral bleaching on reef‐scale calcification. In this study, we monitored bay‐wide alkalinity anomalies in Kāne'ohe Bay, Hawai'i along an inshore‐offshore transect as a proxy for net calcification during the 2015 coral bleaching event and following recovery over a full seasonal cycle. We observed no net calcification in October 2015 during the bleaching event followed by a recovery to significant, positive net calcification rates in June 2016, November 2016, and February 2017 across a range of seawater temperatures and hydrodynamic conditions. Post‐bleaching net calcification rates were not significantly different between survey dates and agreed with the range of pre‐bleaching net calcification rates from a previous study suggesting that net calcification in Kāne'ohe Bay had fully recovered following the 2015 bleaching event.