Peros Banhos is one of the most fascinating and beautiful places I have ever dived, with acres upon acres of shingling Acropora tables. Unfortunately, it is one of few places where I have dived on both sides of a bleaching event (just before & just after), so I am using the samples to train my bleaching predictability models.  

We spent quite a bit of time at Peros Banhos (yes, it does kind of sound like “dog bathroom”), so I have divided up the images and data as follows: 2015-04-14 and 15 (this page; BiPb60-65; pre-bleaching), 2015-04-16 and 04-17 (BiPb66-71), 2015-04-18 and 04-19 (BiPb72-76), and 2015-04-30 through 05-03 (post-bleaching; BiPb110-112, BIPb114, BiPb114b, and BiPb69c, 70b, 72b, and 74b [those sites with letter codes indicate ones visited earlier in April, i.e., those with pre- & post-bleaching data]). According to this article, upwards of 30% of these beautiful Acropora tables have perished on account of this bleaching event.

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BiPb60 (2015-04-14) Neither P. acuta/damicornis nor Seriatopora spp. were observed at this windward fringing reef; instead, I collected other pocilloporids for collaborators.

coral cover=42.2%, algal cover=39.5%, benthic data

BiPb61 (2015-04-14) Neither P. acuta/damicornis nor Seriatopora spp. were observed at this windward channel reef; instead, I collected other pocilloporids for collaborators.

coral cover=20.0%, algal cover=50.0%, benthic data

BiPb62 (2015-04-14) Both P. acuta/damicornis (ChPd62-70) and Seriatopora spp. (ChSe62-64) were observed and sampled from this leeward lagoonal patch reef site. Please note that no photos were taken of ChPd70 (whose genotype was not determined).

coral cover=59.6% (HIGH!), algal cover=29.3%, benthic data

BiPb63 (2015-04-15) Both P. acuta/damicornis (ChPd71-74; n=4) and Seriatopora spp. (ChSe65-67; n=3) were sampled from this leeward lagoonal patch reef.

coral cover=56%, algal cover=28.2%, benthic data

BiPb64 (2015-04-15) Neither P. acuta/damicornis nor Seriatopora spp. were observed at this windward fringing reef; instead, I collected other pocilloporids for collaborators.

coral cover=31.2%, algal cover=42.7%, benthic data

BiPb65 (2015-04-15) Six P. acuta/damicornis (ChPd75-80) and two Seriatopora spp. (ChSe68-69) were sampled from this leeward lagoonal patch reef.

coral cover=41.4%, algal cover=31.4%, benthic data