[Coral-List] unusual bleaching Coral-List Digest, Vol 14, Issue 9

[Dominique McCowan]

Hi listers,

This is in response to Reza Shokri and the unusual bleaching.  Firstly, the
families themselves are more resistant; however, there are species within
the families that are more susceptible, with that being said...
Your question made me have questions of my own.  For instance, when was the
last bleaching?  Usually the more resistant corals show prolonged bleaching
responses, while the susceptible ones bleach and begin recovery.  If there
was a short interval between bleaching events, it is likely that the
resistant corals were still feeling the effects of the previous event, while
the susceptible ones were not (i.e. Moothien-Pillay *et al.* 2006).  Another
question, where were the corals transplanted from, somewhere that usually
has higher temperatures?  If this were the case, then their thermal
threshold was not reached (or it could be that the symbiont type is
different from the native corals). Are there differences in water quality
between the locations?  The transplants may have higher energy reserves, or
their could be a difference in the history of exposure to stress, which
would cause the transplants to be more resistant.
Another possibility (though I'm stretching on this one), if you have
previous bleaching data for the location, is that the events were of a short
duration which may have caused loss of susceptible corals before resistant
corals bleached.  This would enable the left-over "susceptible" species to
be more tolerant (for one reason or another) while the resistant species
which had not experienced bleaching were the susceptible corals of these
species.
There are also several smaller scale possibilities, such as shading, water
flow, water depth, etc.
Please let me know if any of these scenarios are feasible, very curious.

Cheers,
Dominique McCowan
-- 
PhD Candidate
ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies
James Cook University
Townsville, QLD 4811 Australia

Room 108
Sir George Fisher Research Building
Phone: 07 4781 6063
E-mail: dmmccowa at gmail.com

ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies
http://www.coralcoe.org.au/
On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 2:00 AM, <coral-list-request at coral.aoml.noaa.gov>wrote:

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>   1. Unusual coral bleaching on the coast of south?east Iranian
>      Baluchistan (Reza Shokri)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sun, 11 Oct 2009 09:25:48 +0330
> From: Reza Shokri <shokri.mr at gmail.com>
> Subject: [Coral-List] Unusual coral bleaching on the coast of
>        south?east Iranian Baluchistan
> To: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
> Message-ID:
>        <5156a49c0910102255k3743f60x263a49ec5890cbf7 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> Dear coral listers,
>
>
>
> I ?d like to inform you of an unusual bleaching I observed in Chahbahar
> Bay,
> on the coast of south?east Iranian Baluchistan, Oman Sea. I call this as
> unusual bleaching because all bleached corals were of massive Favia, to
> some
> extant Porites and Montastrea species and some soft coral. Non of newly
> relocated (6 months) and transplanted Acropora and *Pocillopora** *corals
> were bleached. I am wondering why stress-toleartor corals were bleached
> while non of ruderals corals were not.
>
>
> Best regards,
>
> Reza
>
>
>
>
> --
> Mohammad Reza Shokri (PhD)
> Assistant Professor
> Marine Conservation Biologist
> Faculty of Biological Sciences
> Shahid Beheshti University
> Zip Code:1983963113
> Evin, Tehran, I.R. Iran
> Phone: +98-21-2990 2723
> Fax: +98-21-2243 1664
> Cell: 0912 409 7464
> E-mail: shokri.mr at gmail.com
>
>
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> End of Coral-List Digest, Vol 14, Issue 9
> *****************************************
>