Inter- and intraspecific responses of coral colonies to thermal anomalies on Palmyra Atoll, central Pacific

Long-term monitoring of individual coral colonies is important for understanding variability between and within species over time in the context of thermal stress. Here, we analyze an 11-year time series of permanent benthic photoquadrats taken on Palmyra Atoll, central Pacific, from 2009 to 2019 to track the growth (i.e., increase in live planar area), pigmentation or lack thereof (“discoloration”), partial or whole-colony mortality, survival, and regrowth of 314 individual coral colonies of nine focal species from two reef habitat types. During this period, thermal anomalies occurred on Palmyra in conjunction with El Niño-Southern Oscillation events in both 2009 and 2015, of which the latter heatwave was longer-lasting and more thermally-severe. We found that coral responses varied by habitat, within and among species, and/or according to the degree of accumulated thermal stress. Nearly all species, particularly Stylophora pistillata and Pocillopora damicornis, responded more negatively to the 2015 heatwave in terms of colony-specific discoloration and reduction in live planar area. While discoloration was more prominent at the shallower reef terrace compared to the fore reef for this subset of colonies, the reef terrace exhibited greater stability of community-wide coral cover. Colony fate was associated with severity of discoloration at the time of warming: one year following the 2009 heatwave, more severely discolored colonies were more likely to grow, yet following the second heatwave in 2015, colonies were more likely to experience shrinkage or mortality. However, colonies that were more severely discolored in 2009 were not necessarily more discolored in 2015, suggesting that colony-specific factors may be more influential in governing responses to thermal stress.