Increase in the extent of mass coral bleaching over the past half-century, based on an updated global database.

ABSTRACT: The recurrence of mass coral bleaching and associated coral mortality in the past few decades have raised questions about the future of coral reef ecosystems. Although coral bleaching is well studied, our understanding of the spatial extent of bleaching events continues to be limited by geographical biases in data collection. To address this gap, we updated a previous observational database and spatially modelled the probability of past bleaching occurrence. First, an existing raw observational database was updated to cover the 1963-2017 period using searches of the academic and grey literature and outreach to coral reef monitoring organizations. Then, in order to provide spatially-explicit global coverage, we employed indicator kriging to spatially model the probability of bleaching occur

SUBMITTER: Virgen-Urcelay A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9925063 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature