The effects of climate change on corals are not uniform. Some corals tolerate greater rises in temperature, even across an individual reef and others thrive in naturally acidified waters. This phenomenon is present on Ofu Island, in American Samoa, where we conducted a field experiment. Identifying these resilient corals and prioritizing their protection may be the best strategy for long-term conservation of coral ecosystems. Although it is not fully understood what makes certain reefs more resilient to coral bleaching than others, emerging evidence suggests that reefs living in areas with naturally variable thermal environments may have higher temperature tolerance. By deploying DTS technology in the back-reef of Ofu Island, we can produce maps of environmental heterogeneity of unprecedented spatiotemporal resolution.

Raw project data is available by contacting ctemps@unr.edu