Journal of Marine Science: Research & Development
Open Access

Abstract

An inshore reef on the Saudi Arabian coast of the Red Sea suffered from severe thermal bleaching (50-80% bleaching on inshore reefs) in the summer of 2010, leaving by March 2011a hard coral cover of 9-9.6% at 10m, 5m and at the reef edge, composed mostly of Porites colonies. Sixty settlement plates installed since March 2011at the reef edge and at 5m, both on the sheltered side and the exposed side of the reef, collected 101coral recruits by July 2011,27coral recruits from July to November 2011 and 16 recruits from November 2011 to March 2012. In the second year the plates collected 69 recruits from March to July 2012, 59 recruits from July-November 2012 and 37 recruits from November 2012 to March 2013. The high numbers of recruits on settlement plates collected in July correspond with the coral spawning season in the region which takes place from April to July each year. Recruits from plates collected at other times of the year appear to be from brooding corals which reproduce over a longer periodthan spawning corals or from spawning corals reproducing towards the end of the spawning season.Bleaching events are frequently occurring phenomena which threaten tropical reefs throughout the world, and a better understanding of the recovery process will help in putting measures in place to protect recovering reefs.

Biography

Jessica Bouwmeester is a Ph.D. candidate in the coral reef ecology lab in the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. She obtained her MSc degree from the University of Lausanne in Switzerland in 2005. She is interested in coral reproduction in the central Red Sea, focusing on the timing and synchrony of spawning as well as coral recruitment patterns.