Coral communities exposed to differential large amplitude internal waves cooling and a severe heat stress in 2010 in the Andaman Sea ...

• Main Authors: Wall, Marlene, Putchim, Lalita, Schmidt, Gertraud, Jantzen, Carin, Khokiattiwong, Somkiat, Richter, Claudio
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA 2014
• Subjects: Biological Impacts of Ocean Acidification BIOACID; Ocean acidification
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.1594/pangaea.831046; https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.831046

Tropical scleractinian corals are particularly vulnerable to global warming as elevated sea surface temperatures (SST) disrupt the delicate balance between the coral host and their algal endosymbionts, leading to symbiont expulsion, mass bleaching and mortality. While satellite sensing of SST has proven a good predictor of coral bleaching at the regional scale, there are large deviations in bleaching severity and mortality on the local scale, which are only poorly understood. Here, we show that internal waves play a major role in explaining local coral bleaching and mortality patterns in the Andaman Sea. In spite of a severe region-wide SST anomaly in May 2010, frequent upslope intrusions of cold sub-pycnocline waters due to breaking large amplitude internal waves (LAIW) alleviated heating and mitigated coral bleaching and mortality in shallow LAIW-exposed waters. In LAIW-sheltered waters, by contrast, bleaching susceptible species suffered severe bleaching and total mortality. These findings suggest that ... : CalMarO - Calcification by marine organisms, PEOPLE-2007-1-1-ITN Marie Curie Action: 215157BioAcid - German Ministry for Education and Research Project (Bmbf), Grant number 03F0608B, Bioacid 3.2.3, Coral Calcification in marginal reefsORCAS - Ocean Reef Coupling in the Andaman Sea - German Research Foundation (DFG), Grant number RI 1074/7-1 ...