Live coral abundance
Live coral cover was significantly reduced in at least the first two years post-bleaching, and this reduction varied by taxa (Figure 1b, mixed effects model, interaction: year*coral taxa: χ2(3,136) = 12.17, P= 0.007). The interaction was driven by a 77% decline in mean Acropora cover between 2016 and 2017, and a further 7% decline in 2018 (2016 mean Acropora % cover ± SEM: 18.6 ± 3.92; 2017: 4.29 ± 0.9; 2018: 3 ± 0.59, Tukey HSD pairwise test adjusted p-values < 0.001). However, by 2022, six years post-bleaching, mean Acropora cover had recovered to pre-bleaching levels and was not significantly different from 2016 (Acropora 12.3% ± 2.48 SEM).
Patterns of aggressive levels and coral cover closely matched each other across all four surveyed years (Supplemental Figure 1).