Coral recovery after disturbance

The coral community in Moorea suffered from nearly complete mortality between 2005 and 2010 due to a sea star outbreak and a cyclone. However, the community showed a remarkable recovery between 2011 and 2017. According to the author, this recovery may have been due to "evolutionary rescue".

What is Evolutionary rescue?

Evolutionary rescue involves individuals with helpful traits surviving a disturbance and passing on those traits to their offspring. This can make future generations become better able to handle changing environmental conditions.

The corals in Moorea, especially Pocillopora species, may have a higher resistance to environmental changes due to a history of a variety of responses to shocks and a high potential for evolutionary rescue.

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Edmunds 2018