[Coral-List] Coral Reefs Global Bleaching Special Issue and Summary Analysis of Global Bleaching and Mortality

Sat Sep 30 22:04:07 EDT 2017

Coral Reefs Special Issue:

The 2014-2017 Global Coral Bleaching Event: Drivers, Impacts, and Lessons Learned

Call for Papers

and Summary Analysis of Global Bleaching and Mortality

Extensive and widespread coral bleaching has occurred across most of the world’s coral reef regions since 2014, contributing greatly to accelerated coral loss and reef degradation. These recent events are linked to ever-increasing ocean temperatures, and firmly establish climate change as the single greatest threat to coral assemblages and coral reef ecosystems. Improved understanding of causes and consequences of coral bleaching are needed to highlight the plight of coral reefs, re-invigorate action on climate change, and further inform management of coral reefs in the face of climate change

Coral Reefs is pleased to announce the publication of a Special Issue entirely devoted to the recent (June 2014 – May 2017) pan-tropical mass bleaching. Original submissions are invited that document the drivers, impacts and lessons learnt from this global coral bleaching event. Papers may discuss bleaching, mortality, and impacts on a local to global geographic extent and focus on a single season or multiple seasons of bleaching. Papers may emphasize larger scale patterns of bleaching or the associated drivers that are used to describe this event, or place it in a larger context. It is not sufficient to simply report the occurrence or extent of bleaching in given location or region. We also encourage laboratory studies focused on the processes during this event, field surveys, or syntheses. In particular, we encourage papers that are innovative in their approaches and findings, but also seek thorough documentation of the event and it’s impacts around the globe. It is important that we capture the full impact of this event, so papers that document the extent and direct causes of mortality or capture processes that enhanced the recovery of corals, as lessons that could inform resilience-based management, will be particularly valuable.

Papers can be submitted to this Special Issue anytime up to October 1st, 2018, and accepted manuscripts will be published online as soon as they are finalized. All papers will then be published together in early 2019 as one entire issue of Coral Reefs. We seek all manuscript types, including short communications, notes, reports and reviews (please consult website www.springer.com/life+sciences/ecology/journal/338 for specific details pertaining to formatting requirements). Note that the number of short communications will be very limited, so these should be exciting and innovative rather than a simple report of bleaching on your local reefs.

Mark Eakin at NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch, Rusty Brainard at NOAA’s Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center, and Hugh Sweatman of the Australian Institute of Marine Science are serving as guest editors of this special issue.

Additionally, NOAA Coral Reef Watch continues to collate reports of bleaching, mortality, and recovery during and since this global event for a summary paper, led by Mark Eakin that will target a high impact scientific journal. Please visit https://coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/satellite/research/coral_bleaching_report.php <https://coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/satellite/research/coral_bleaching_report..php> to submit reports of bleaching and its after-effects, or no bleaching, to NOAA Coral Reef Watch.

All significant data contributors will be included as co-authors on the paper, and we will endeavor to acknowledge all contributors. This paper will most likely summarize most data for public distribution at the jurisdictional level, as per Eakin et al. 2009 (http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0013969). Because of the scale of this paper, contributing your data to this analysis should in no way interfere with any local or regional papers you may be planning about bleaching on your reefs during the Third Global Coral Bleaching Event.

------------------------------------------------------------------
C. Mark Eakin, Ph.D.
Coordinator, NOAA Coral Reef Watch
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Center for Satellite Applications and Research
Satellite Oceanography & Climate Division
e-mail: mark.eakin at noaa.gov
url: coralreefwatch.noaa.gov
Twitter: @CoralReefWatch	FB: Coral Reef Watch

NOAA Center for Weather and Climate Prediction (NCWCP)
5830 University Research Ct., E/RA32
College Park, MD 20740
Office: (301) 683-3320     Fax: (301) 683-3301
Mobile: (301) 502-8608    SOCD Office: (301) 683-3300

“if we’re going to leave our children with oceans like the ones that were left to us then we're going to have to act.  And we're going to have to act boldly.”  
President Barack Obama, September 15, 2016