William K. Fitt

TL;DR: A thorough understanding of the organismal responses occurring during bleaching will help explain changes in coral populations and in the coral reef community, and perhaps assist in predicting the future of reef corals and coral reefs during the next century of global climate change.

TL;DR: Temperature-dependent loss of PSII activity and concomitant decrease in D1 reaction center protein seen in symbionts collected from corals naturally bleached on the reef are confirmed, indicating that perturbation ofPSII protein turnover rates during photoinhibition at elevated temperatures underlies the physiological collapse of symbiont in corals susceptible to heat-induced bleaching.

TL;DR: The results show that corals from all depths exhibited bleaching every year, regardless of whether they appeared white, tan, or mottled to the human eye, suggesting that all tropical reef-building corals, world-wide, exhibit similar predictable cycles in their tissue biomass and symbiotic algae.

TL;DR: The comparison of symbiont diversity between southern GBR and Caribbean reefs shows an inverse relationship between coral diversity and symbionT diversity, perhaps as a consequence of more-rapid diversification of Caribbean symbionts.

TL;DR: Fundamental differences in the physiology of the symbionts within different species of coral are identified, with zooxanthellae within M. annularis appear to be more susceptible to heat-induced damage at or near the reaction centre of Photosystem II, while zooxanhellae living in S. radians remain capable of dissipating excess excitation energy through non-photochemical pathways, thereby protecting the photosystem from damage during heat exposure.