Global climate change and coral reefs: Rising temperatures, acidification and the need for resilient reefs
"There is strong international consensus that climate change and ocean acidification are already affecting shallow water corals and their symbiosis with dinoflagellate algae. There are vast areas of deep-sea corals that are also being affected; these larg...
Global climate change and coral reefs: Reef temperature perspectives covering the last century
"Temperatures and thermal stress at reef locations around the globe have generally increased over the past 128 years with regional trends in the range of 0.24-0.59 degrees C per century. For most coral reef regions the levels of thermal stress are unprece...
Earth observation based assessment of anthropogenic stress to coral reefs - a global analysis
"In this paper a remote sensing based approach to assess potential anthropogenic stress to coral reefs worldwide is presented. Three reef stressors are analyzed using nighttime lights data derived from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) p...
Coral and crustose coralline algae disease on the reefs of American Samoa
"Surveys for lesions in corals were conducted at seven sites around Tutuila in June 2004 and January 2005. The objectives of the study were to document the distribution and prevalence of disease in the major genera of corals and crustose coralline algae, ...
Examination of algal diversity and benthic community structure at Palmyra Atoll, US Line Islands
"Palmyra Atoll National Wildlife Refuge is the second largest atoll under U.S. jurisdiction in the Pacific Ocean. Until recently, little was known about benthic communities and, more specifically, algal abundance at Palmyra aside from species lists genera...
Improving restoration approaches for Acropora palmata: Lessons from the Fortuna Reefer grounding in Puerto Rico
Detached Acropora palmata fragments (n=1857) generated by the M/V Fortuna Reefer grounding off Mona Island, Puerto Rico were secured to reef substrates or dead standing A. palmata skeletons using stainless steel wire. After 10 years, only 6% (n=104) of th...
Characterization of biologically significant hydrodynamic anomalies on the Florida Reef Tract
The U. S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Integrated Coral Observing Network (ICON) Project uses artificial-intelligence software to implement heuristic models of coral reef ecosystem response to physical conditions. These models us...
Assessment of coral reef ecosystems implies the acquisition of precision data and observations appropriate for answering questions about the response of multiple organisms to physical and other environmental stimuli. At the National Oceanic and Atmospheri...
The instrumental architecture of a Coral Reef Early Warning System (CREWS) station
The Integrated Coral Observing Network (ICON) program has constructed and installed a series of Coral Reef Early Warning System (CREWS) stations which provide a wealth of high-quality meteorological and oceanographic data in near real-time. CREWS stations...
Coral recruits to settlement plates at remote locations in the U.S. Pacific
Documenting the density and taxon of coral recruits to settlement plates is a widely used method of quantifying coral recruitment. Four deployments of recruitment plate arrays were made at six locations in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands at annual or bi...
Global climate change and coral reefs: Rising temperatures, acidification and the need for resilient reefs