Physiology color score extracted from pictures taken during a heatwave experiment done September to November 2018 using reef building corals collected in Kāne'ohe Bay, O'ahu, Hawai'i.

Abstract

Two common reef-building corals, Montipora capitata and Pocillopora acuta, were subjected to a extended heatwave scenario. Fragments were allowed to acclimate in experimental tanks for two weeks prior to exposure to one of the following four treatments: Ambient Temperature Ambient pCO2 (ATAC), Ambient Temperature High pCO2 (ATHC), High Temperature Ambient pCO2 (HTAC), and High Temperature High pCO2 (HTHC). The treatment period lasted for a two month period, starting on September 22nd, 2018 and lasting through November 17th, 2018. Following the stress period, coral fragments were exposed to a two-month recovery period in ambient conditions.

Throughout the entire four-month experiment, photos of the coral individuals were taken to extract a "color score". This dataset contains the processed data to calculate "color score" values.

For a complete list of measurements, refer to the full dataset description in the supplemental file 'Dataset_description.pdf'. The most current version of this dataset is available at: https://www.bco-dmo.org/dataset/884208