Bleaching | Reef Resilience

Global Assessment of Coral Bleaching and Required Rates of Adaptation Under Climate Change

by reefres | Apr 1, 2014

The authors of this paper conducted a global assessment of coral bleaching by adapting the NOAA Coral Reef Watch bleaching predation method. The results of their model suggest that most coral reefs will be exposed to annual or biannual bleaching events and will need...

Vulnerability of Coastal Communities to Key Impacts of Climate Change on Coral Reef Fisheries

by reefres | Apr 1, 2014

This study addresses the lack of current scientific work focusing on the social vulnerability of fisheries-dependent communities in the context of climate change-related impacts to coral reefs. Researchers examine exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity, as...

Does Herbivorous Fish Protection Really Improve Coral Reef Resilience? A Case Study from New Caledonia (South Pacific)

by reefres | Apr 1, 2014

The authors assessed populations of herbivorous fish in 14 reefs around New Caledonia and found that the current low fishing pressure doesn’t affect the population of macroalgae feeders. Therefore, they conclude that regulating the fishery would have a high social...

Impact of Herbivore Identity on Algal Succession and Coral Growth on a Caribbean Reef

by reefres | Apr 1, 2014

This study conducted two experiments over two years to evaluate how herbivore identity and species richness affected the recruitment and primary succession of algal communities and the cascading effects on coral growth. Equal densities and masses of either...

Coral Bleaching, Reef Fish Community Phase Shifts and the Resilience of Coral Reefs

by reefres | Apr 1, 2014

The 1998 coral bleaching event, the largest coral reef disturbance on historic record, caused dramatic habitat loss. Annual censuses that spanned both before and after the bleaching event (from 1993 to 2004) in the central Great Barrier Reef were reported here. The...

Genomic Basis for Coral Resilience to Climate Change

by reefres | Apr 1, 2014

This research study seeks to explain coral resilience to heat stress by looking at differences in genes that are expressed in heat tolerant (resilient) versus heat sensitive corals (of the same species). Authors simulated bleaching stress and used DNA-sequencing to...

Repeated Bleaching Events May Result in High Tolerance and Notable Gametogenesis in Stony Corals: Oculina Patagonica as a Model

by reefres | Mar 28, 2014

In this study, the authors assessed the effect of bleaching on gametogenesis of populations of the coral Oculina patagonica commonly undergoing repeated seasonal bleaching events (BE) along the Israeli Mediterranean coast, and compared it with the effect of first and...

Ocean Acidification and Warming will Lower Coral Reef Resilience

by reefres | Mar 26, 2014

In this study, the authors quantitatively analyzed how different combinations of CO2 and fishing pressure on herbivores will affect the ecological resilience of a benthic reef community consisting of three common groups: branching corals, fleshy macroalgae and turfs...

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