I had the great pleasure to run a workshop on growing the capacity for coral conservation and reef restoration in developing nations in Mombasa, Kenya in March of 2024. Unfortunately, this coincided with perhaps the worst bleaching event I have witnessed firsthand, the subject of a recent article.
Even after only 1-2 degree-heating weeks, minor bleaching was evident in Kisite National Park (near the Tanzanian border).
The study regions in order of date surveyed.
Would have been more surprising had corals NOT bleached under these conditions….13 DHWs?!!
Note that the scales in panel a are inverted relative to one another and that the colors of the hexagons depict the mean of all sites within. Some appear to be on land because of how the underlying points were “jittered.”
Decreases in coral abundance in Kenya since the mid-1990s.
Although not statistically significant, bleaching was somewhat more common in corals living at shallower depths (as expected since light is also higher there).