1. Study of the bleaching alert capability of the CRW and CoRTAD coral bleaching heat stress products in China's coral reefs.
- Author
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Qin, Binni, Yu, Kefu, and Zuo, Xiuling
- Subjects
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CORAL bleaching , *CORAL reefs & islands , *CORALS , *ECOSYSTEM health , *RESTORATION ecology - Abstract
Coral bleaching heat stress products provide real-time and rapid coral bleaching alerts for coral reefs globally. However, geographical variations in the alert accuracy of multi-source coral bleaching heat stress products exist. Taking the coral reefs in the South China Sea (SCS) as the study area, we evaluated and improved the coral bleaching alert capabilities of two coral bleaching heat stress products: Coral Reef Watch (CRW) and Coral Reef Temperature Anomaly Database (CoRTAD). Using in situ coral bleaching survey data and evaluation indicators, the optimized thresholds of degree heating weeks (DHWs) for coral bleaching alerts were determined. The results in the SCS indicated that, first, CRW was better than CoRTAD for coral bleaching event alerts. However, both products underestimated coral bleaching events using the common DHW thresholds of 4°C-weeks and 8°C-weeks. Second, the DHW optimized threshold for CRW was 3.32°C-weeks for coral bleaching event alerts and 4.52°C-weeks for severe coral bleaching event alerts. For CoRTAD products, the DHW optimized threshold was 2.36°C-weeks for coral bleaching event alerts and 4.14°C-weeks for severe coral bleaching event alerts. This study proposed a method to evaluate and optimize the alert capability of multi-source coral bleaching heat stress products, which can provide more accurate basic data for coral reef ecosystem health assessment and contribute to global coral reef ecosystem protection and restoration. • A method to evaluate and optimize the alert capability of coral bleaching heat stress products in the SCS. • Optimized DHW thresholds for coral bleaching alerts were 3.32°C-weeks for CRW and 2.36°C-weeks for CoRTAD. • Optimized DHW thresholds for coral severe bleaching alerts were 4.52°C-weeks for CRW and 4.14°C-weeks for CoRTAD. • CRW was better than CoRTAD for coral bleaching event alerts in the SCS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2023
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