Resilience of coral calcification to extreme temperature variations in the Kimberley region, northwest Australia

© 2015, The Author(s). We report seasonal changes in coral calcification within the highly dynamic intertidal and subtidal zones of Cygnet Bay (16.5°S, 123.0°E) in the Kimberley region of northwest Australia, where the tidal range can reach nearly 8 m and the temperature of nearshore waters ranges seasonally by ~9 °C from a minimum monthly mean of ~22 °C to a maximum of over 31 °C. Corals growing within the more isolated intertidal sites experienced maximum temperatures of up to ~35 °C during spring low tides in addition to being routinely subjected to high levels of irradiance (>1500 µmol m−2 s−1) under near stagnant conditions. Mixed model analysis revealed a significant effect of tidal exposure on the growth of Acropora aspera, Dipsastraea favus, and Trachyphyllia geoffroyi (p ≤ 0.04), as well as a significant effect of season on A. aspera and T. geoffroyi (p ≤ 0.01, no effect on D. favus); however, the growth of both D. favus and T. geoffroyi appeared to be better suited to the warm summer conditions of the intertidal compared to A. aspera. Through an additional comparative study, we found that Acropora from Cygnet Bay calcified at a rate 69 % faster than a species from the same genus living in a backreef environment of a more typical tropical reef located 1200 km southwest of Cygnet Bay (0.59 ± 0.02 vs. 0.34 ± 0.02 g cm−2 yr−1 for A. muricata from Coral Bay, Ningaloo Reef; p <0.001, df = 28.9). The opposite behaviour was found for D. favus from the same environments, with colonies from Cygnet Bay calcifying at rates that were 33 % slower than the same species from Ningaloo Reef (0.29 ± 0.02 vs. 0.44 ± 0.03 g cm−2 yr−1, p <0.001, df = 37.9). Our findings suggest that adaption and/or acclimatization of coral to the more thermally extreme environments at Cygnet Bay is strongly taxon dependent.