[Coral-List] Bleaching in the Caymans

[Billy Causey]

Al and Jim ...
Impressive work.  The good news here in the Keys is that we have a 
"nor-wester" hitting us this weekend ....but the stressful summer SSTs 
left us with a lot of coral disease outbreaks.  Billy

alan.e.strong at noaa.gov wrote:
> Hi Jim,
>
> I was chatting on-line with Ernesto last evening...
>
> http://coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/satellite/virtual_stations/graphs/vs_multiyear_exp_CaymanIslands.png 
>
>
> Note the above link from our Coral Reef Watch site.
>
> SSTs at the Caymans are presently running higher than anything we've 
> ever seen [in this decade] at our Virtual Station there.  A bit of a 
> worry.  The good news is the "fall" downturn in SST is close at hand.
>
> Cheers,
> Al
>
> Jim Hendee said the following on 9/25/2009 8:43 AM:
>> Ernesto and Coral-Listers,
>>
>>     Several days ago Croy McCoy answered our queries for field
>> verification to our bleaching ecoforecasts (starting Sep 2) at
>> http://ecoforecast.coral.noaa.gov/index/0/LCIY2/station-forecasts.  Here
>> is his subjective assessment, with hopes for follow-up:
>>
>>     "...I did a dive this morning [Sep 23], ~90-100% of corals on deep
>>     terrace reef and ~30% down the wall to ~100ft, with a median I would
>>     say of ~80% of all corals exhibiting some form of bleaching
>>     (location was at White Stroke Canyon, North Wall). Though the # of
>>     colonies bleached at depth on the wall (plating form) was a bit
>>     lower, some colonies were bleached in their entirety. Taking an
>>     educated guess to quantify, I would say we have moderate moving on
>>     to severe bleaching, that is well on its way."
>>
>>
>>     Cheers,
>>     Jim
>>
>> EWeil wrote:
>>  
>>> I have just been informed by Croy McCoy that they are having an 
>>> intense and widespread bleaching event in Grand Cayman. He went 
>>> diving yesterday and found totally bleached corals down to 30 m, 
>>> observations indicate that close to 100% of scleractinians showed 
>>> bleaching signs in deeper environments, and around 80% in shallower 
>>> habitats. Water temps. have been above 29 Celcius since June (Hobo 
>>> data). I will be conducting disease surveys in mid-November, so if 
>>> anything like what we saw in 2005 with WPD and YBD outbreaks during 
>>> and after the massive bleaching occurs here, we will probably have a 
>>> chance to document this in our permanent survey transects around the 
>>> island. Croy will be conducting quantitative surveys and tagging 
>>> colonies in the next days.
>>> On the other hand, here in Puerto Rico, there are no signs of a 
>>> bleaching event. Just the usual, a few pale colonies here and there. 
>>> Same situation observed during our disease surveys last week in 
>>> Grenada.
>>> Saludos!
>>>
>>> EW
>>> Dr. Ernesto Weil
>>> Department of Marine Sciences
>>> University of Puerto Rico
>>> PO BOX 3208
>>> Lajas PR 00667
>>> Pho: (787) 899-2048 x. 241
>>> Fax: (787) 899-5500 - 2630
>>>
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>>> Coral-List at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
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>>>       
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>
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-- 
Billy D. Causey, Ph.D., Regional Director
Southeast Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Region
National Marine Sanctuary Program
33 East Quay Road
Key West, Florida 33040

305.809.4670 (ex 234)
305.395.0150 (cell)
305.293.5011 (fax)

Billy.Causey at noaa.gov