Divergent bleaching and recovery trajectories in reef-building corals following a decade of successive marine heatwaves.

ABSTRACT: Increasingly frequent marine heatwaves are devastating coral reefs. Corals that survive these extreme events must rapidly recover if they are to withstand subsequent events, and long-term survival in the face of rising ocean temperatures may hinge on recovery capacity and acclimatory gains in heat tolerance over an individual's lifespan. To better understand coral recovery trajectories in the face of successive marine heatwaves, we monitored the responses of bleaching-susceptible and bleaching-resistant individuals of two dominant coral species in Hawai'i, Montipora capitata and Porites compressa, over a decade that included three marine heatwaves. Bleaching-susceptible colonies of P. compressa exhibited beneficial acclimatization to heat stress (i.e., less bleaching)

SUBMITTER: Brown KT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10756270 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature