Coral reef recovery from intense heatwaves

How long does it take coral reefs to recover from mass mortality events, how different are the communities that come back, and are they more or less resilient to future heatwaves? We aim to find out. Since the end of the 2015-2016 El Niño, we’ve been monitoring corals and their symbionts, reef fishes and other components of Kiritimati’s coral reef ecosystems. We anticipate being able to return to Kiritimati in 2022, once it is safe to do so in light of COVID, to continue this research.