Approximately 42,000 coral colonies were surveyed between March 2010 and September 2012 to quantify bleaching and mortality impacts from successive marine heatwaves. The data, published in a 2020 study, captures changes in benthic community composition before, during, and after thermal stress events at a World Heritage site. Severe bleaching ranged from 99% at shallow lagoon sites to 17% at deeper reef slope sites in March 2010.
Use Cases
- Modeling coral bleaching thresholds based on successive thermal anomalies described in the study
- Analyzing taxonomic resilience by comparing mortality rates among Pocillopora, Stylophora, Porites, and Montipora species
- Tracking shifts from coral-dominated to macroalgae-dominated reef assemblages following repeated bleaching stress
- Assessing recovery of symbiotic function in coral colonies based on pigmentation and color return observations
Strengths
- Survey quantified the response of approximately 42,000 coral colonies from different taxa
- Data collection spanned a 2.5-year period from March 2010 to September 2012, covering multiple bleaching events
- Findings are linked to a specific, documented climatic event: the fast phase transition from the 2009–2010 El Niño to a strong La Niña
Limitations
- Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download
- Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment
- Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to the single high-latitude location of Lord Howe Island
Provenance
- Source
- Geoscience Australia Data
- Collection Method
- Coral health surveys completed at Lord Howe Island reef sites
- Time Range
- March 2010 to September 2012
- Freshness
- Last updated 2026-03-25 17:57:40.057342; freshness should be verified
- Geography
- High-latitude coral reef assemblages around Lord Howe Island, Australia