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1/10 BREAKING NEWS: Our discovery about how some corals managed to survive almost a year of heat stress is out today! @ClaarDanielle @uvic
2/10 We ( @ClaarDanielle @Tietjenk) tracked individual corals on Kiritimati through a tropical heatwave of unprecedented duration. The heatwave was triggered by the 2015-2016 El Niño, which caused the 3rd ever global coral bleaching event. Kiritimati was its epicentre:
3/10 Unexpectedly, some brain corals survived the event by recovering from bleaching while still at elevated temperatures, a phenomenon that has not previously been observed:
4/10 These corals initially had heat-sensitive symbiotic partners. They endured bleaching, and recovered through proliferation of heat-tolerant symbionts.
5/10 Not all brain corals did this! ONLY those not also exposed to strong local stressors – such as water pollution, dredging, infrastructure – exhibited this capacity.
6/10 Most brain corals in highly disturbed areas started with heat-tolerant symbionts, bleached, and died, possibly because these “miserly” symbionts had left their coral hosts with lower energy reserves
7/10 These findings, which provide a glimmer of hope for corals under climate change, are published today in @NatureComms https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19169-y
8/10 This research reflects the TRULY extraordinary efforts of former @BaumLab PhD student @ClaarDanielle and #Kiritimati Project Manager @TietjenK in the field (You two are amazing!!), and more recently my PDFs @SamStarko and @hannah_eps
9/10 We also worked with an amazing international team of coral and climate experts, including our beloved former collaborator and friend Ruth Gates ( @RuthDGates), & @coralprof @jrcunning @coralsncaves @GatesCoralLab @CoralReefFuture @himb_soest @UMiamiRSMAS Thank you dream team!
10/10 Finally, we are grateful to the people of Kiribati and our friends on Kiritimati, and to our many funders who believed in us. Thank you. @NSERC_CRSNG @NSF @pewenvironment @PackardFdn @ruffordgrants @InnovationCA @uvic @UHawaiiNews Can't wait to see what we discover next!
