{"id":972166,"date":"2026-07-31T22:03:36","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T22:03:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/972166\/"},"modified":"2026-07-31T22:03:36","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T22:03:36","slug":"lady-elliot-islands-bleached-coral-recovers-after-cyclone-alfred-cools-sea-temperature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/972166\/","title":{"rendered":"Lady Elliot Island’s bleached coral recovers after Cyclone Alfred cools sea temperature"},"content":{"rendered":"

As Queenslanders waited for Cyclone Alfred to make landfall, its meander along the coastline brought relief to heat-stricken corals.<\/p>\n

After widespread coral bleaching in the Great Barrier Reef in the summer of 2024, the cyclone’s formation in February 2025 brought cooler water to the World Heritage marine park.<\/p>\n

The effect of that cool change can be seen most dramatically around Lady Elliot Island, the reef’s southernmost coral cay.<\/p>\n

\"Regenerated\"Bleached Bleached coral around Lady Elliot Island February 2024 \/ Regenerated healthy coral in early 2026.<\/p>\n

About 90 per cent of the island’s bleached coral has returned to good health, and scientists are now eagerly awaiting a spawning event later this year.<\/p>\n

“The water temperatures dropped about 2 degrees Celsius,” Erin Watson, marine biologist and master reef guide, said.<\/p>\n

\"A Erin Watson says the reef around the island has recovered well from the 2024 bleaching event.(ABC Wide Bay: Grace Whiteside)<\/p>\n

“Now if you go out for a snorkel, the corals that did bleach, you wouldn’t even notice had bleached in the first place.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What is bleaching?<\/p>\n

When coral is under stress, it expels the algae that lives in its tissues.<\/p>\n

The algae, called zooxanthellae, provides food and gives the coral colour.<\/p>\n

Without it, the coral cannot feed and its tissue turns transparent, exposing the white calcium carbonate skeleton.<\/p>\n

\"Brown Algae lives inside the coral’s tissue, providing food and colour.(Supplied: Jessica Blackmore)<\/p>\n

One of the key reasons for coral bleaching is rising water temperatures due to climate change.<\/p>\n

But coral bleaching is not always a death knell.<\/p>\n

“If those environmental conditions like water temperature start to go back down again, the coral takes back its algae and it recovers,”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ms Watson said.<\/p>\n

“Because we didn’t get a bleaching event [in 2025], we actually got a little coral spawning event.”<\/p>\n

\"A 2024 was the first time much of the southern part of the reef, including Lady Elliot Island, experienced coral bleaching.(ABC Wide Bay: Johanna Marie)<\/p>\n

While there has been strong recovery in southern parts of the reef, other areas have not been as fortunate.<\/p>\n

The Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) said the 2024 bleaching event was the most severe and geographically extensive in its 40 years of monitoring the reef.<\/p>\n

\"A Mike Emslie says cyclones are a double-edged sword.(ABC News: Baz Ruddick)<\/p>\n

Research team leader Mike Emslie said it caused “substantial mortality” with 40 per cent of reefs experiencing their largest annual decline in coral cover.<\/p>\n

‘Incredible recovery’<\/p>\n

Dr Emslie described cyclones as a double-edged sword.<\/p>\n

“They’re known to have what’s called this ‘cooling wake’ effect and can reduce the temperature of the water,” he said.<\/p>\n

“But the other side of the coin with cyclones is that they also produce a really large storm swell, and that storm swell can obviously impact the fragile coral skeletons and break them apart.”<\/p>\n

Christine Dudgeon is the project manager for Leaf to Reef, which is a research and rehabilitation program based on Lady Elliot Island.<\/p>\n

\"A Christine Dudgeon says frequent bleaching events do not give coral time to recover.(ABC Wide Bay: Grace Whiteside)<\/p>\n

“We’re seeing incredible recovery,”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

she said.<\/p>\n

“The really big challenge of bleaching that we’ve seen in many parts of the Great Barrier Reef is when we have these back-to-back events or prolonged events \u2026 happening so readily.<\/p>\n

“It doesn’t give the environment time to recover in between.”<\/p>\n

Dr Dudgeon said because of Lady Elliot Island’s proximity to the continental shelf, it had traditionally been more protected from environmental issues that affected the northern part of the reef.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"A Christine Dudgeon has been monitoring the reef’s recovery.(Supplied: Christine Dudgeon)<\/p>\n

“We have lots of cold water upwelling,” she said.<\/p>\n

“It has a potential buffer against things like coral bleaching where the water can cool down and help the coral to survive and thrive a bit longer.”<\/p>\n

From bleaching to spawning<\/p>\n

Researchers and staff on the island were hopeful this year’s conditions would be favourable for reproduction.<\/p>\n

\"A Erin Watson is hoping for a significant spawning event this year.(ABC Wide Bay: Grace Whiteside)<\/p>\n

“After corals have bleached, it takes them a few years to build up their energy reserves to be able to spawn,” Ms Watson said.<\/p>\n

“Hopefully at the end of this year, we’re going to get a really big spawning event.”<\/p>\n

Dr Emslie agreed it was likely to be a good year for spawning across the Great Barrier Reef.<\/p>\n

“I’d say there’ll definitely be spawning happening this year,”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

he said.<\/p>\n

“Most corals can recover quickly enough following that physiological stress imposed by bleaching to put the energy into reproduction.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As Queenslanders waited for Cyclone Alfred to make landfall, its meander along the coastline brought relief to heat-stricken…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":972167,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[23],"tags":[9245,82799,390231,295805,182719,746,89830,390230,4798,159,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-972166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-coral","tag-coral-bleaching","tag-coral-recovery","tag-coral-spawning","tag-cyclone-alfred","tag-environment","tag-great-barrier-reef","tag-lady-elliot-island","tag-queensland","tag-science","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117016857068569596","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/972166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=972166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/972166\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/972167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=972166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=972166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=972166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}