WCS 3-Sentence Science

Ocean Skeletons Reveal Historical Climate Impacts

May 16, 2019

Photo credit: ©WCS

Each year, Wildlife Conservation Society scientists publish more than 300 peer-reviewed studies and papers. “WCS 3-Sentence Science” is a regular tip-sheet — in bite sized helpings — of some of this published work.

Here we present the work of WCS Fiji Country Director, Sangeeta Mangubhai, on heat tolerance in coral reefs:

1. A limiting factor in projecting where coral reefs will survive under 21st century climate change is a lack of quantitative data on the thermal thresholds of different reef communities.
2. Researchers studied skeletal stress bands on corals to reconstruct the history of bleaching on eight reefs in the central equatorial Pacific and use this information to better understand the thermal thresholds of their coral communities.
3. Results showed the most thermally tolerant reefs in the study (Jarvis and Kanton Islands) experienced 50 percent bleaching at seven to nine times more thermal stress than did the least resistant reef in the study (Maiana Island).

Study and Journal: “Skeletal records of bleaching reveal different thermal thresholds of Pacific coral reef assemblages” from Coral Reefs
WCS Co-Author(s): Sangeeta Mangubhai, WCS Fiji Program

For more information, contact: Stephen Sautner, 718–220–3682, ssautner@wcs.org.