Remnant hollowed out dead coral skeleton branches defer coral community recovery
Kathryn C. Scafidi, Kyle W. Fouke, Mayandi Sivaguru, Bruce W. Fouke, Peter J. Edmunds

TL;DR
Dead coral skeletons in Moorea are delaying reef recovery by creating unstable structures that hinder new coral growth.
Contribution
The study reveals how dead Pocillopora corals, through hollowing and bioerosion, defer coral community recovery after bleaching.
Findings
Dead Pocillopora corals remained intact for years after bleaching, deterring coral recruitment.
Hollowing of dead coral branches occurred via bioerosion, weakening reef structures.
Retention of dead corals on the reef surface may prevent recovery of original coral communities.
Abstract
Through repeated impacts of ecosystem disturbances, most coral reefs have transitioned to a degraded state with low living coral cover. Until recently, the reefs of Moorea, French Polynesia, have provided an exception to this trend as their coral communities have recovered from sequential disturbances over the last 50 years. Early in 2019, the north shore fore reef at 10-m depth had ~ 75% live coral cover, but was decimated by bleaching to leave 17% coral cover by August 2020 and many kilometers of reef dominated by dead-in-place colonies of Pocillopora spp. By 2025, coral recovery had not begun because of the chronology of decay affecting dead Pocillopora skeletons. We combine ecological analyses of dead Pocillopora colonies with high-resolution microscopy of aragonite skeletal structure to better understand the fate of these dead branching corals. Bleaching in 2019 created a reef…
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Taxonomy
TopicsCoral and Marine Ecosystems Studies · Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies · Marine and coastal plant biology
