Great Barrier Reef A. aspera data files for physiology, photophysiology, and SST trajectories/offsets

Brief description

This data package consists of 6 files:

(1) Source data qPCR

(2) PAM source data

(3) Source data for Figure 2 temperature offsets

(4) Yield data NPQ acclimation

(5) Raw gene expression data

(6) Zooxanthellae counts

Abstract [Related Publication]: Coral bleaching events threaten the sustainability of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR). Here we show that bleaching events of the past three decades have been mitigated by induced thermal tolerance of reef-building corals, and this protective mechanism is likely to be lost under near-future climate change scenarios. We show that 75% of past thermal stress events have been characterized by a temperature trajectory that subjects corals to a protective, sub-bleaching stress, before reaching temperatures that cause bleaching. Such conditions confer thermal tolerance, decreasing coral cell mortality and symbiont loss during bleaching by over 50%. We find that near-future increases in local temperature of as little as 0.5°C result in this protective mechanism being lost, which may increase the rate of degradation of the GBR.

The full methodology is available in the publication shown in the Related Publications link below.

Full description

This data package consists of 6 files in MS Excel (.xlsx) format. Ainsworth, Tracy; Leggat, Bill; Ortiz, Juan Carlos; Heron, Scott (2016): Great Barrier Reef A. aspera data files for physiology, photophysiology, and SST trajectories/offsets. figshare. https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.3081064.v1