[Coral-List] Status of Caribbean coral reef after Irma and María???

[Patricia González]

Dear Ernesto and Miguel:

It is so interesting the things that you comment. Here, in Cuba, at least in western and southcentral part of the country, we don´t saw much bleaching this year. Probably, will be very interesting know if your colonies are able to recover in the next months. If the bleaching event took place because the turbidity and temperature it is no so high, could be that colonies will recover. Please, I really appreciate if you share with us the future of this bleached colonies. 

Also, as we had two strong hurricans in the last season in our region (Caribbean) what about produce a general publish of Caribbean regarding with the effects of Irma and Maria in ours coral reefs??? Make sense for you??? What about other Caribbean countries???

Best regards,
Patricia


Dra. Patricia González
Biología y ecología marina
Directora
Centro de Investigaciones Marinas
Universidad de La Habana
Teléfono: 2030617 ext. 103



-----Mensaje original-----
De: coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov [mailto:coral-list-bounces at coral.aoml.noaa.gov] En nombre de Miguel Figuerola - NOAA Affiliate
Enviado el: martes, 28 de noviembre de 2017 16:43
Para: coral-list at coral.aoml.noaa.gov
Asunto: [Coral-List] Late November Bleaching in La Parguera, Puerto Rico

FYI. Updates from Dr. Ernesto Weil from the University of Puerto Rico Marine Lab Station in La Parguera.

"Dear Colleagues and friends,

Diving today I found a high percentage of all species of Orbicella and a few Colpophyllia natans, C. amaranthus and Pseudodiploria strigosa as well as Palythoa caribaeorum bleached off La Parguera. The curious thing besides the late dates, is that only colonies below 10-12 meters in depth are bleached. None of the shallow colonies had any bleaching signs. In one locality, I roughly estimated that between 30-40% of the Orbicellas were bleached (white) and/or pale (yellowish), which is pretty darn high.

SSTs. are normal for this time of the year (27.5-28 degrees celsius), and was normal during the summer (29-31 degrees), however, I need to retrieve my deepwater HOBOS (15-33m) to check how it was down there. There were no signs of thermal anomalies this year.

What is different is the level and long lasting turbidity. It has been murky and turbid since Maria went through and the rainy season and trade winds kick off, which has dumped large amounts of water along the coast and inland. Winds have been blowing constantly as usual for this time of the year. I suspect therefore, that instead of temp.-induced- this might be a response to low quality and quantity of light over an extended period of time (75 days since Maria).

Saludos!

-E. Weil

--
*><(((♫>*
*Miguel G. Figuerola-Hernández*
2017 Sea Grant Knauss Fellow - Coral Program Fellow *Coral Reef Conservation Program (CRCP)* *Cubicle 10335* *Phone #: (240) 533-0770*

*Extension: 45-30770*
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