A partially bleached staghorn coral that was planted by scientists is visible, Aug. 4, 2023, on Paradise Reef, near Key Biscayne, Fla. Scientists from the University of Miami established a new restoration research site there to identify and better understand the heat tolerance of certain coral species during bleaching events.
Wilfredo Lee/AP
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Wilfredo Lee/AP
MIAMI — A year after the worst bleaching event ever recorded, the coral reefs off the Florida coast are slowly recovering. Despite elevated ocean temperatures, scientists say this summer they didn’t see significant bleaching.
Corals expel their algae when the water is too hot for too long of a period. Last summer, record ocean temperatures fueled by an El Niño climate pattern sparked a global coral bleaching event. In the Florida Keys, there was widespread bleaching and many corals died, decimating reefs.
Because of storms and many days with a significant cloud cover, water temperatures in Florida over the last several weeks were well under what was seen last year. Phanor Montoya-Maya with the Coral Restoration Foundation says, “We’re better than last year but still in an alert level.”
Montoya-Maya says there was some bleaching on coral reefs in the Florida Keys this summer, but at levels normally seen. “Bleaching will happen every summer until September or October,” he says. “But, nothing out of what is expected…in natural summer conditions.”
The Coral Restoration Foundation is one of several groups that mounted a rescue operation last year to preserve genotypes of endangered coral species. Some have spawned in nurseries and will be replanted onto reefs later this year.
Montoya-Maya says colonies of elkhorn coral and some other species have grown so large in nurseries that they need to be cut back or replanted. He says, “We are confident that once temperatures start decreasing and we are out of the bleaching zone, we will resume out-planting.”
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