Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico Reef Carbonate Budgets After 2023 Heat Stress

Supplemental data for a study on the impact of the 2023 thermal stress event and Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease on reef carbonate budgets. The dataset likely contains measurements from 68 reef sites across the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, supporting the published article in Current Biology from May 2026. It was authored by Lorenzo Alvarez-Filip and shared under a CC-BY-4.0 license.

Use Cases

• Modeling shifts from net carbonate production to net erosion based on site-level budget data.
• Comparing community composition impacts between Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico reefs using regional site data.
• Analyzing the differential effects of thermal stress and disease on branching/plate-forming versus massive coral taxa.

Strengths

• Data is directly linked to a peer-reviewed publication in Current Biology (DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2026.04.017).
• Covers a specific, large-scale disturbance event (the 2023 thermal stress) across 68 reef sites.
• Provides a comparative framework by including regions affected by both disease and heat stress (Caribbean) and heat stress alone (Gulf of Mexico).

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• The 160.5 KB file size suggests a limited scope of data points.

Provenance

Source

Lorenzo Alvarez-Filip, via figshare.

Collection Method

Likely contains field measurements and calculations of carbonate budgets from 68 reef sites.

Time Range

Centered around the 2023 thermal stress event.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-08 13:09:48; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico.