Contact: Barbara K. Kennedy
Caption: Scientists have found a rare species of algae that is tolerant of stressful environmental conditions and that proliferated in Caribbean corals when the corals' more-sensitive algae were being expelled during the sea-temperature warming of 2005. The research is one of the first times that anyone has had the opportunity to conduct a community-wide study of corals and algae before, during and after a bleaching event. This image, by research leader Todd LaJeunesse of Penn State, was taken in October 2005 during the 2005 coral-bleaching event in the Caribbean. The white corals have lost their symbiotic algae and appear "bleached."
Credit: Todd LaJeunesse, Penn State University
Usage Restrictions: The image credit must be published along with the image.
Related news release: Global warming causes outbreak of rare algae associated with corals, study finds