An enigmatic decoupling between heat stress and coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef.

ABSTRACT: Ocean warming threatens the functioning of coral reef ecosystems by inducing mass coral bleaching and mortality events. The link between temperature and coral bleaching is now well-established based on observations that mass bleaching events usually occur when seawater temperatures are anomalously high. However, times of high heat stress but without coral bleaching are equally important because they can inform an understanding of factors that regulate temperature-induced bleaching. Here, we investigate the absence of mass coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) during austral summer 2004. Using four gridded sea surface temperature data products, validated with in situ temperature loggers, we demonstrate that the summer of 2004 was among the warmest summers of the satellite era (198

SUBMITTER: DeCarlo TM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6694787 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature