Ofu Island in American Samoa is Home to Some of the Toughest Corals on Earth

The backreefs surrounding Ofu are one of the most beautiful and unique coral reef ecosystems int he world. These backreefs are separated into isolated pools which experience varying temperature regimes based how isolated they become at low tide. Amazingly corals have adapted to the hot waters in these pools. We used this natural experiment to compare the growth rates of Acropora hyacinthus colonies to see if thermally tolerant corals in the highly variable pool grow as fast as those in the moderately variable pool. We found that thermally tolerant corals grow slower suggesting there may be an energetic tradeoff to thermal tolerance. See UCLA newsroom coverage for more details. Scientific article here