Bleaching, coral mortality and subsequent survivorship on a West Australian fringing reef

• Published in: Coral reefs 2013-03, Vol.32 (1), p.233-238
• Main Authors: Depczynski, M., Gilmour, J. P., Ridgway, T., Barnes, H., Heyward, A. J., Holmes, T. H., Moore, J. A. Y., Radford, B. T., Thomson, D. P., Tinkler, P., Wilson, S. K.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Animal and plant ecology; Animal, plant and microbial ecology; Applied ecology; Biological and medical sciences; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Cnidaria. Ctenaria; Conservation, protection and management of environment and wildlife; Coral reefs; Disease; Environmental degradation: ecosystems survey and restoration; Freshwater & Marine Ecology; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; High temperature; Invertebrates; La Nina; Life Sciences; Marine parks; Mortality; Oceanography; Sea water ecosystems; Synecology; Thermal stress; Water temperature
• ISSN: 0722-4028; 1432-0975
• DOI: 10.1007/s00338-012-0974-0

The spring and summer of 2010/11 saw an exceptionally strong La Niña push warm waters from Indonesia down the Western Australian coastline, resulting in a host of extraordinary biological oddities including significant bleaching of Western Australian corals. Here, we report a 79–92 % decline in coral cover for a location in the Ningaloo Marine Park where sustained high water temperatures over an 8-month period left just 1–6 % of corals alive. The severity of bleaching provided an opportunity to investigate the resilience of different taxonomic groups and colony size classes to an acute but protracted episode of thermal stress. While the sub-dominant community of massive growth forms fared reasonably well, the dominant Acropora and Montipora assemblages all died, with the exception of the