Severe coral bleaching in 2002-2003 at Cobourg Marine Park, Northern Territory, Australia

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This study analyses data from six years of monitoring live coral cover of shallow fringing reefs at Garig Gunak Barlu National Park (Cobourg Peninsula, Northern Territory, Australia). The chosen monitoring technique (digital live percent area cover assessment within permanent quadrats) provided high accuracy and had sufficient power to detect both negative and positive changes in coral cover. However, the magnitude of changes after severe coral bleaching from November 2002 to January 2003 showed that the monitoring design, while being appropriate for tracking small disturbances in coral cover, may be superfluous in situations where catastrophic changes follow major coral bleaching events. Four months after the 2002/2003 bleaching, losses in overall live coral cover at different monitored sites (ranging from 42% to 90%, including between 75% and 96% losses of Acropora) resulted in serious alterations in the composition of local coral reefs and a decline in reef complexity.