Porites superfusa mortality and recovery from a bleaching event at Palmyra Atoll, USA.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The demography of a coral colony is not a binary trajectory of life and death. Based on the flexibility afforded by colonial organization, most reef-building corals employ a variety of dynamic survival strategies, including growth and shrinkage. The demographic flexibility affects coral size, shape and reproductive output, among other factors. It is thus critical to quantify the relative importance of key dynamics of recruitment, mortality, growth and shrinkage in changing the overall cover of coral on a reef.

Methods

Using fixed photographic quadrats, we tracked the patterns of change in the cover of one common central Pacific coral, Porites superfusa, before and after the 2009 ENSO event.

Results

Coral colonies suffered both whole and partial colon

SUBMITTER: Furby KA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5417065 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature