Results indicate that coral metabolism is closely adapted to ambient temperature conditions, and Tropical corals measured at Enewetak, Marshall Islands, showed greater primary production compared to maintenance requirements at elevated temperatures than did subtropical varieties of the same species in Hawaii.
Corals in both tropical and subtropical locations live at temperatures close to their lethal limits during the summer months, and any factor that increases respiration (such as high incident light) accelerates bleaching at higher temperatures.
Results suggest that a decrease in the natural water temperature of Hawaiian reefs would be more harmful to corals than a temperature increase of the same magnitude.
A series of cold fronts passing over the western Arabian Gulf from December 1988 to March 1989 produced the longest period of sustained low water temperatures ever recorded in a coral reef area, providing new estimates of lower thermal limits for reef coral survival.
Temperature tolerance in the reef coral Montipora verrucosa (Lamarck) is affected by salinity and light, and interactions between physical environmental factors appear to be most important near the limits of tolerance for a given factor.
The only species from these recent introductions that has become abundant and widespread in Hawaii is the small intertidal barnacle Chthamalus proteus Dando and Southward, 1980, which was formerly restricted to the Caribbean.
The evidence of GAs being true neoplasias (tumors) is mixed, so a cautionary approach is urged in use of morphologic terminology, and preliminary indices of their spatial patterns and progression within coral colonies are obtained.
Although skeletal tumors have been reported on at least eight families of corals, acroporids are apparently the most susceptible to the formation of calicoblastic epitheliomas, possibly due to the rapid growth rates of acroparids and their propensity to form grafts with coral reefs.