[Coral-List] cold water bleaching

[Zoe Richards]

Hi Alan and coral-listers, 
I find the concept of cold-water bleaching very interesting.
I observed what appeared to be cold-water bleaching at Orpheus Island on the Great Barrier Reef in August (Winter) of 2005.  Preceding this observation was two weeks of very strong SE trade winds that brought cold southerly waters far north along the East Australian coastline - these conditions also caused a large amount of coastal erosion along the northern beaches of Townsville.   I observed bleaching in three bays (little Pioneer, Pioneer and Cattle) and it appeared only shallow water (<5m) Acropora species (e.g. A. millepora) were affected. When I returned 2 months later there were no apparent signs of the bleaching event - so it was my impression at the time that the corals recovered.
Hope this adds to the global picture of cold-water bleaching events and inspires people to incorporate cold-water bleaching in future bleaching experiments.

Cheers Zoe Richards

James Cook University
zoe.richards at jcu.edu.au