Coral bleaching severity and mortality data from patch reef 13 in Kāne'ohe Bay, O'ahu, Hawai'i from 2015 to 2022

Abstract

This dataset contains coral colony-level bleaching severity and mortality (coral genotype, bleaching phenotype, bleaching score, mortality percent) from patch reef 13 in Kāne'ohe Bay, O'ahu, Hawai'i from 2015 to 2022.

This data set was collected as part of a study of benthic community composition data from patch reef 13 and colony-level bleaching severity data. See Related Dataset "Benthic cover" for more data from this study.

Study abstract:

Increasingly frequent marine heatwaves are devastating coral reefs. Corals that survive these extreme events must rapidly recover if they are to withstand subsequent events, and long-term survival in the face of rising ocean temperatures may hinge on recovery capacity and acclimatory gains in heat tolerance over an individual's lifespan. To better understand coral recovery trajectories in the face of successive marine heatwaves, we monitored the responses of bleaching-susceptible and bleaching-resistant individuals of two dominant coral species in Hawaiʻi, Montipora capitata and Porites compressa, over a decade that included three marine heatwaves.

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/897415