Product catalogue
Successive marine heatwaves cause significant coral bleaching impacts during a fast phase transition from El Niño to La Niña
The frequency and intensity of marine heatwaves resulting in thermal bleaching events have increased over recent decades leading to catastrophic losses of reef-building corals in many regions. Successive annual bleaching events are also becoming more frequent, limiting the capacity of susceptible coral species to recover. Following an unusual fast phase transition of the record-breaking 2009–2010 warm pool El Niño event in the Central Pacific to a strong La Niña event the following year, high-latitude coral reef assemblages around Lord Howe Island were exposed to unprecedented successive thermal anomalies causing severe bleaching. Coral health surveys completed between March 2010 and September 2012 quantified the response and resilience of approximately 42,000 coral colonies from different taxa to the successive bleaching events. Changes in benthic community composition before, during and after the thermal stress events were also assessed. In March 2010, severe coral bleaching ranged between 99% at some shallow lagoon sites to 17% at deeper reef slope sites. Significant coral tissue mortality was evident during March and May 2010, with increased pigmentation and colour returning to surviving colonies by September 2010, indicating recovery of symbiotic function in living coral colonies. Pocillopora, Stylophora, Porites and Montipora species were the most affected taxa, with minimal mortality observed in merulinid and Acropora species. During the second thermal anomaly in 2011, significant bleaching occurred in susceptible coral taxa, demonstrating limited resilience and acclimation capacity of these high-latitude corals to future-ocean warming. Repeated bleaching stress resulted in a shift at some sites from a coral-dominated reef assemblage to one comprising a higher cover of macroalgae and other invertebrate taxa. These findings demonstrate that future-ocean warming and extreme heatwave events are likely to lead to significant shifts in reef assemblages and potential local extinction of some dominant but vulnerable reef-building corals at this world heritage listed site.
<b>Citation:</b> Steven J. Dalton, Andrew G. Carroll, Eugenia Sampayo, George Roff, Peter L. Harrison, Kristina Entwistle, Zhi Huang, Anya Salih, Sandra L. Diamond, Successive marine heatwaves cause disproportionate coral bleaching during a fast phase transition from El Niño to La Niña, <i>Science of The Total Environment</b>, Volume 715, 2020, 136951, ISSN 0048-9697, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.136951.
Simple
Identification info
- Date (Creation)
- 2018-05-09T12:05:00
- Date (Publication)
- 2024-05-14T08:01:21
- Citation identifier
- Geoscience Australia Persistent Identifier/https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/120759
- Cited responsible party
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Publisher Elsevier B.V.
External Contact Author Dalton, S.J.
External Contact Author Carroll, A.
Place and Communities Internal Contact Author Sampayo, E.
External Contact Author Roff, G.
External Contact Author Harrison, P.L.
External Contact Author Entwistle, K.
External Contact Author Huang, Z.
Place and Communities Internal Contact Author Salih, A.
External Contact Author Diamond, S.L.
External Contact
- Name
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Science of The Total Environment
- Issue identification
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Volume 715, 1 May 2020
- Page
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136951
- Purpose
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Publication
- Status
- Completed
- Point of contact
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Point of contact Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Voice Resource provider Place and Communities Division
External Contact Point of contact Carroll, A.
Place and Communities Internal Contact
- Spatial representation type
Spatial resolution
- Level of detail
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latitude 31.5°S and longitude 159.0°E
- Topic category
-
- Geoscientific information
Extent
Temporal extent
- Time period
- 2009 2014
Extent
))
- Maintenance and update frequency
- As needed
Resource format
- Title
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Product data repository: Various Formats
- Website
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Data Store directory containing the digital product files
Data Store directory containing one or more files, possibly in a variety of formats, accessible to Geoscience Australia staff only for internal purposes
- theme.ANZRC Fields of Research.rdf
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EARTH SCIENCES
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- Keywords
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marine heatwaves
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- Keywords
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El Nino
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- Keywords
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La Nina
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- Keywords
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Coral bleaching
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- Keywords
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Published_External
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Resource constraints
- Title
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All rights reserved
- Access constraints
- License
- Use constraints
- License
- Other constraints
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Crown Copyright© 2020
Resource constraints
- Classification
- Unclassified
- Language
- English
- Character encoding
- UTF8
Distribution Information
- Distributor contact
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Distributor Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Voice facsimile
- OnLine resource
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Link to Journal
Link to Journal
- Distribution format
-
Resource lineage
- Statement
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Manuscript to be submitted to Science of the Total Environment Journal
- Hierarchy level
- Document
Metadata constraints
- Classification
- Unclassified
Metadata
- Metadata identifier
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urn:uuid/b89ba81a-d6fd-4ed6-8da6-8e9dca10548f
- Title
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GeoNetwork UUID
- Contact
-
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Point of contact Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Voice Owner Carroll, A.
Place and Communities Internal Contact Point of contact Carroll, A.
Place and Communities Internal Contact
Type of resource
- Resource scope
- Document
- Name
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Journal Article
Alternative metadata reference
- Title
-
Geoscience Australia - short identifier for metadata record with
uuid
- Citation identifier
- eCatId/120759
- Metadata linkage
-
https://ecat.ga.gov.au:8080/geonetwork/srv/eng//metadata/b89ba81a-d6fd-4ed6-8da6-8e9dca10548f
- Date info (Creation)
- 2018-05-09T01:58:40
- Date info (Revision)
- 2018-05-09T02:08:52
Metadata standard
- Title
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AU/NZS ISO 19115-1:2014
Metadata standard
- Title
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ISO 19115-1:2014
Metadata standard
- Title
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ISO 19115-3
- Edition date
- 2015-07-01T00:00:00
- Title
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Geoscience Australia Community Metadata Profile of ISO 19115-1:2014
- Edition
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Version 2.0, April 2015