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Bleached and Barren

June 11, 2014

Researchers from the lab of WHOI scientist Anne Cohen are currently working on Dongsha Atoll in the South China Sea to study how coral reef ecosystems are affected by internal waves. In this photo, MIT-WHOI Joint Program student Thomas DeCarlo inspects a massive coral colony that was recently bleached, a phenomenon caused by the loss of the symbiotic algae that provide coral with energy and that often leads to the death of the coral. This bleaching event was likely the result of a recent warming of event of 4°C in just two weeks that the team recorded.(Photo by Pat Lohmann, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)