Experimental coral-growth and physiological data and time-series imagery for Porites astreoides in the Florida Keys, U.S.A.

The USGS Coral Reef Ecosystems Studies project provides science that helps resource managers tasked with the stewardship of coral reef resources. This data release contains data on coral-growth rates and time-series photographs taken of colonies of the mustard hill coral, Porites astreoides, grown at four sites on the Florida Keys reef tract from spring 2015 to spring 2017. The data will be used to inform resource managers on the spatial and temporal variability in heat stress and the response to it by P. astreoides along 350 km of the Florida reef tract. These data will be used to draw conclusions about the capacity of this species to persist in Florida and throughout the western Atlantic as ocean conditions continue to change. The datasets included here were interpreted in Lenz and others (2021).

Lenz, E.A., Bartlett, L.A., Stathakopoulos, A., and Kuffner, I.B., 2021, Physiological differences in bleaching response of the coral Porites astreoides along the Florida Keys reef tract during high-temperature stress: Frontiers in Marine Science, https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2021.615795.