Impacts of marine heatwaves on coral reefs

Our study of Porites lobata on Kiritimati revealed “even though the lobed coral appeared to be the most resilient of all coral species, our results demonstrate that one lineage was actually very sensitive and experienced a major reduction in abundance following the heatwave. This highlights how the impacts of extreme events caused by climate change may be even worse than previously thought because they threaten diversity at the genetic level.” This finding was published in a Science Advances paper lead by former Post-Doc, Sam Starko and it was accompanied by a press-release. Julia was interviewed by Radio Canada and Julia and Sam wrote an article for The Conversation.