Nearshore bleaching photos - Fiji

[James Wiseman]

Ladies and gentlemen,

I have posted some photos of nearshore bleaching from a recent trip to Fiji.
I decided to post them to a webpage yesterday as I think they are worth
discussing as part of this recent "Factors in coral bleaching - nearshore
vs. offshore reefs" discussion.

The website (It is NOT commercial) shows ONLY the pictures and location map
and some of my comments (temperature, some observations, etc).  Here is the
URL:

http://www.reefhabilitation.com/fiji/bleaching/index.htm


Of particular interest to me are some of the photos showing "unusual"
bleaching patterns.  Any feedback on these is much appreciated - as I would
like to better understand coral bleaching.

For example:   
Photo 1596 shows an Acropora sp. bleaching from the center out.  Why is
this?   
Photos 1594 and 1595 show a monospecific stand of acropora.  I would expect
either the whole colony to bleach, or perhaps the tops of branches - however
the coral is only bleached in large "patches."  Why is this?   
Some of the photos show many different colonies in one patch reef.  Why is
one coral bleached, and it appears that an identical species next to it is
not (1599 and 1600).  Why did one coral bleach, and the other did not? 

The areas I dove in Fiji were in the North (Somosomo Straits and reefs
around Savusavu and Namenala Isl.) and I did not observe any bleaching below
20 foot water depth.

Please feel free to use these photos for non-commercial use and high
resolution digital photos are available upon request.

James Wiseman
Project Engineer
Winmar Consulting Services
www.winmarconsulting.com


~~~~~~~
For directions on subscribing and unsubscribing to coral-list or the
digests, please visit www.coral.noaa.gov, click on Popular on the
menu bar, then click on Coral-List Listserver.