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Research papers on Coral reef bleaching

Recent and highly-cited academic work on coral reef bleaching, gathered from Semantic Scholar, CrossRef and OpenAlex.

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  1. Coral Reefs Under Rapid Climate Change and Ocean Acidification

    Ove Hoegh‐Guldberg, Peter J. Mumby, Anthony J. Hooten, et al. · 2007 · Science · 5,963 citations

    Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration is expected to exceed 500 parts per million and global temperatures to rise by at least 2 degrees C by 2050 to 2100, values that significantly exceed those of at least the past 420,000 years during which most extant marine organisms evolved. Under conditions expected in the 21st century, global warming and ocean acidification will compromise carbonate accretion, with corals becoming increasingly rare on reef systems. The result will be less diverse reef communities and carbonate reef structures that fail to be maintained. Climate change also exacerbates local stresses from declining water quality and overexploitation of key species, driving reefs incr

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  3. Spatial and temporal patterns of mass bleaching of corals in the Anthropocene

    Terry P. Hughes, Kristen D. Anderson, Sean R. Connolly, et al. · 2018 · Science · 2,261 citations

    Tropical reef systems are transitioning to a new era in which the interval between recurrent bouts of coral bleaching is too short for a full recovery of mature assemblages. We analyzed bleaching records at 100 globally distributed reef locations from 1980 to 2016. The median return time between pairs of severe bleaching events has diminished steadily since 1980 and is now only 6 years. As global warming has progressed, tropical sea surface temperatures are warmer now during current La Niña conditions than they were during El Niño events three decades ago. Consequently, as we transition to the Anthropocene, coral bleaching is occurring more frequently in all El Niño-Southern Oscillation phas

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  4. The 27–year decline of coral cover on the Great Barrier Reef and its causes

    Glenn De’ath, Katharina Fabricius, Hugh Sweatman, et al. · 2012 · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 1,918 citations

    The world's coral reefs are being degraded, and the need to reduce local pressures to offset the effects of increasing global pressures is now widely recognized. This study investigates the spatial and temporal dynamics of coral cover, identifies the main drivers of coral mortality, and quantifies the rates of potential recovery of the Great Barrier Reef. Based on the world's most extensive time series data on reef condition (2,258 surveys of 214 reefs over 1985-2012), we show a major decline in coral cover from 28.0% to 13.8% (0.53% y(-1)), a loss of 50.7% of initial coral cover. Tropical cyclones, coral predation by crown-of-thorns starfish (COTS), and coral bleaching accounted for 48%, 42

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  6. Ocean acidification causes bleaching and productivity loss in coral reef builders

    Kenneth R. N. Anthony, David I. Kline, Guillermo Díaz-Pulido, et al. · 2008 · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 1,255 citations

    Ocean acidification represents a key threat to coral reefs by reducing the calcification rate of framework builders. In addition, acidification is likely to affect the relationship between corals and their symbiotic dinoflagellates and the productivity of this association. However, little is known about how acidification impacts on the physiology of reef builders and how acidification interacts with warming. Here, we report on an 8-week study that compared bleaching, productivity, and calcification responses of crustose coralline algae (CCA) and branching (Acropora) and massive (Porites) coral species in response to acidification and warming. Using a 30-tank experimental system, we manipulat

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  7. Projecting Coral Reef Futures Under Global Warming and Ocean Acidification

    John M. Pandolfi, Sean R. Connolly, Dustin J. Marshall, et al. · 2011 · Science · 1,219 citations

    Many physiological responses in present-day coral reefs to climate change are interpreted as consistent with the imminent disappearance of modern reefs globally because of annual mass bleaching events, carbonate dissolution, and insufficient time for substantial evolutionary responses. Emerging evidence for variability in the coral calcification response to acidification, geographical variation in bleaching susceptibility and recovery, responses to past climate change, and potential rates of adaptation to rapid warming supports an alternative scenario in which reef degradation occurs with greater temporal and spatial heterogeneity than current projections suggest. Reducing uncertainty in pro

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  8. Coral Reef Ecosystems under Climate Change and Ocean Acidification

    Ove Hoegh‐Guldberg, Elvira S. Poloczanska, William Skirving, et al. · 2017 · Frontiers in Marine Science · 925 citations

    Coral reefs are found in a wide range of environments, where they provide food and habitat to a large range of organisms as well as other ecological goods and services. Warm-water coral reefs, for example, occupy shallow sunlit, warm and alkaline waters in order to grow and calcify at the high rates necessary to build and maintain their calcium carbonate structures. At deeper locations (40 – 150 m), “mesophotic” (low light) coral reefs accumulate calcium carbonate at much lower rates (if at all in some cases) yet remain important as habitat for a wide range of organisms, including those important for fisheries. Finally, even deeper, down to 2000 m or more, the so-called ‘cold-water’ coral re

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  9. Caribbean Corals in Crisis: Record Thermal Stress, Bleaching, and Mortality in 2005

    C. Mark Eakin, JA Morgan, Scott F. Heron, et al. · 2010 · PLoS ONE · 918 citations

    BACKGROUND: The rising temperature of the world's oceans has become a major threat to coral reefs globally as the severity and frequency of mass coral bleaching and mortality events increase. In 2005, high ocean temperatures in the tropical Atlantic and Caribbean resulted in the most severe bleaching event ever recorded in the basin. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Satellite-based tools provided warnings for coral reef managers and scientists, guiding both the timing and location of researchers' field observations as anomalously warm conditions developed and spread across the greater Caribbean region from June to October 2005. Field surveys of bleaching and mortality exceeded prior efforts i

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  11. Warming Trends and Bleaching Stress of the World’s Coral Reefs 1985–2012

    Scott F. Heron, Jeffrey Maynard, Ruben van Hooidonk, et al. · 2016 · Scientific Reports · 577 citations

    Coral reefs across the world's oceans are in the midst of the longest bleaching event on record (from 2014 to at least 2016). As many of the world's reefs are remote, there is limited information on how past thermal conditions have influenced reef composition and current stress responses. Using satellite temperature data for 1985-2012, the analysis we present is the first to quantify, for global reef locations, spatial variations in warming trends, thermal stress events and temperature variability at reef-scale (~4 km). Among over 60,000 reef pixels globally, 97% show positive SST trends during the study period with 60% warming significantly. Annual trends exceeded summertime trends at most

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  14. Nearshore Turbid-Zone Corals Exhibit High Bleaching Tolerance on the Great Barrier Reef Following the 2016 Ocean Warming Event

    Kyle M. Morgan, Chris T. Perry, Jamie A. Johnson, et al. · 2017 · Frontiers in Marine Science · 166 citations

    High sea surface temperatures (SSTs) on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) during summer 2015/2016 caused extensive coral bleaching, with aerial and in-water surveys confirming high (but variable) bleaching-related coral mortality. In contrast, bleaching impacts on nearshore turbid-zone reefs, traditionally considered more “marginal” coral habitats, remain poorly documented. This is because rapid ecological surveys are difficult in these turbid water settings, and baseline coral community data from which to quantify disturbance are rare. However, models suggest that the extreme environmental conditions characteristic of nearshore settings (e.g., fluctuating turbidity, light and temperature) may ac

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  17. Effects of ocean warming and coral bleaching on aerosol emissions in the Great Barrier Reef, Australia

    Rebecca Jackson, Albert Gabric, Roger Cropp · 2018 · Scientific Reports · 19 citations

    AbstractIt is proposed that emissions of volatile sulfur compounds by coral reefs contribute to the formation of a biologically-derived feedback on sea surface temperature (SST) through the formation of marine biogenic aerosol (MBA). The direction and strength of this feedback remains uncertain and constitutes a fundamental constraint on predicting the ability of corals to cope with future ocean warming. We investigate the effects of elevated SST and irradiance on satellite-derived fine-mode aerosol optical depth (AOD) throughout the Great Barrier Reef, Australia (GBR) over an 18-year time period. AOD is positively correlated with SST and irradiance and increases two-fold during spring and s

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  20. Coral and reef fish community recovery following the 2010 extreme ocean warming event (mass bleaching event) at Thailand

    Krisanadej Jaroensutasinee, Sirirat Somchuea, Mullica Jaroensutasinee · 2020 · Journal of Animal Behaviour and Biometeorology · 3 citations

    Reef fish play an important role in the community dynamics of coral reefs and maintaining healthy reefs. This study aimed to (1) assess coral recovery at reefs around Racha Yai Island after the 2010 mass coral bleaching event and (2) compare the fish community indices (Shannon diversity, evenness) and fish trophic functional groups between low (Patok Bay) and high (Khonkae Bay) environmental disturbance sites during 2013-2019. The fish surveys and the percent live coral covers from both bays during 2013-2019 were collected using the fish visual census method and a permanent quadrat method along 50-m transect lines. Our results showed that the percentage of live coral cover at both bays incre

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