Marine heatwave-driven mortality of bleached colonies of the massive coral Goniopora is exacerbated by a black band disease epizootic
Data files
Oct 23, 2025 version files 560.48 KB
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Byrne_et_al_2025_BBD.Rmd
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Byrne_et_al_2025_Black_Band_Disease__One_Tree_Island__Goniopora_tracking_data.csv
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Byrne_et_al_2025_Black_Band_Disease__One_Tree_Island_Temp_Data_CRW_Satellite_SST.csv
174.16 KB
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Byrne_et_al_2025_Black_Band_Disease__One_Tree_Island_Temp_Data_in_situ_loggers.csv
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Byrne_et_al_2025_Black_Band_Disease_One_Tree_Island_Goniopora_category_data.csv
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README.md
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Abstract
During the recent fourth global mass coral bleaching event, the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) experienced the highest temperatures for centuries and widespread bleaching. For massive, long-lived Goniopora, bleaching coincided with a black band disease (BBD) epizootic at One Tree Reef (OTR). This necrotic wasting disease, typically rare on the GBR, appeared along the edge of bleached polyps. We tracked 112 Goniopora colonies from bleaching onset through winter to summer in seven surveys. In February 2024, 75% of colonies were bleached, and 4% of these had BBD. By April, 61% of bleached colonies had an aggressive black band invading the tissue. For heat-stressed and diseased Goniopora, winter cooling did not promote substantial recovery, with 75% of tagged colonies dead by October. Only 24% of tagged colonies recovered, albeit with partial mortality. Population surveys at two sites showed a similar bleaching-disease pattern with high mortality by October (46% and 66%). Repeated health assessments revealed a link between bleaching, disease, and heat in the demise of these normally resilient massive colonies, many of which have been lost at OTR. Understanding the connection between the ‘evil twins’ of bleaching and disease is important as corals are faced with unprecedented thermal anomalies.
Dataset DOI: 10.5061/dryad.37pvmcvxr
Description of the data and file structure
This dataset was collected at One Tree Reef, located in the southern Great Barrier Reef, between February 2024 and February 2025, to track bleaching and disease in Goniopora corals. It includes three components:
- Tagged colony dataset - 112 individual Goniopora colonies were photographed and assessed at seven time points for bleaching, black band disease (BBD), recovery, mortality, and polyp colour. Image analysis was used to quantify disease progression in a subset of colonies. (File name: Byrne_et_al_2025_Black_Band_Disease_ One_Tree_Island_ Goniopora_tracking_data.csv)
- Population surveys - Surveys conducted in May and October 2024 documented the health status of 720 colonies across two lagoon sites (Gutter and Shark Alley). Data were used to analyse Goniopora colonies observed at One Tree Island that were dead or in varying states with black band disease associated with the 2024 bleaching event. Colony condition was categorised as normal, bleached, diseased, or dead. (File name: Byrne_et_al_2025_Black_Band_Disease_One_Tree_Island_Goniopora_category_data.csv)
- In situ temperature data - In situ temperature data (One Tree Island): Contains seawater temperature records collected from loggers deployed at coral depth. Raw data were retrieved directly from field instruments and processed to daily mean temperatures to remove sub-daily variability and noise. (File name: Byrne_et_al_2025_Black_Band_Disease_One_Tree_Island_Temp_Data_in_situ_loggers.csv)
- Satellite temperature data - CRW Satellite Sea Surface Temperature (SST) data (One Tree Island): Contains daily SST records derived from the NOAA Coral Reef Watch (CRW) satellite product for the One Tree Island region. Satellite data were extracted, quality-controlled, and processed to daily mean temperatures to ensure consistency with in situ logger data. (File name: Byrne_et_al_2025_Black_Band_Disease_One_Tree_Island_Temp_Data_CRW_Satellite_SST.csv)
Files and variables
File: Byrne_et_al_2025_BBD.Rmd
Description: This R Markdown script (Byrne_et_al_2025_BBD.Rmd) was used to import, clean, and analyse data from One Tree Island to investigate bleaching and black band disease (BBD) in Goniopora corals during the 2024 bleaching event. Analyses included frequency plots and GLMs of colony health states from population surveys, as well as processing of in situ and satellite temperature datasets. Temperature analyses involved temporal alignment, cleaning of non-finite values, climatology computation, and marine heatwave detection using the heatwaveR package.
File: Byrne_et_al_2025_Black_Band_Disease__One_Tree_Island__Goniopora_tracking_data.csv
Description: This dataset contains observations of 112 tracked Goniopora colonies photographed and monitored at One Tree Island, southern Great Barrier Reef, across seven time points between February 2024 and February 2025. Each colony was assessed for bleaching, black band disease (BBD), recovery, mortality, and polyp colour. The data were used to analyse colony health states and the occurrence of BBD associated with the 2024 bleaching event.
Variables
- Colony Number: 1-112
- Location: Gutter, Shark Alley
- Day: 0, 40, 74, 134, 231, 266, 361
- Presence of BBD: 0 (absence), 1 (presence)
- Category: Normal colour, Bleached, Dead, Recovered
- Polyp Colour: White, Yellow, Brown, Purple
File: Byrne_et_al_2025_Black_Band_Disease__One_Tree_Island_Temp_Data_CRW_Satellite_SST.csv
Description: This dataset contains daily sea surface temperature (SST) records derived from the NOAA Coral Reef Watch (CRW) satellite product for the One Tree Island region. The raw satellite data were extracted, quality-controlled, and processed to daily mean temperatures to ensure consistency with in situ logger data. The dataset was imported and analysed in R using the script Byrne et al_2025_BBD.Rmd. Analytical steps included temporal alignment, cleaning of non-finite values, climatology computation, and marine heatwave detection and categorisation using the heatwaveR package.
Variables
- t: date
- temp: mean. daily temperature (°C)
File: Byrne_et_al_2025_Black_Band_Disease__One_Tree_Island_Temp_Data_in_situ_loggers.csv
Description: This dataset contains in situ seawater temperature records collected from temperature loggers deployed at One Tree Island, located in the southern Great Barrier Reef. Raw data were retrieved directly from field instruments and subsequently processed to daily mean temperatures to remove sub-daily variability and noise. Data were imported and analysed in R using the script Byrne et al_2025_BBD.Rmd. Processing included date–time standardisation, cleaning of non-finite values, and calculation of daily means prior to climatology and marine heatwave detection analyses performed with the heatwaveR package.
Variables
- t: date
- temp: mean. daily temperature (°C)
File: Byrne_et_al_2025_Black_Band_Disease_One_Tree_Island_Goniopora_category_data.csv
Description: Data used to analyse Goniopora colonies observed at One Tree Island to be dead or a various states with black band disease associated with the 2024 bleaching event. These data were used in frequency plots and GLM analyses in the Rscript "Byrne et al_2025_BBD.Rmd. Photos were obtained at two sites and two dates in the first lagoon of One Tree Island: Gutter and Shark Alley and in May and October of 2024. The analysed data represent a subset of the total data collection effort. The final subset of images used here for analysis was obtained randomly, and details can be found in the methods of the respective paper.
Variables
- "Unique_ID": a unique ref number containing a "sequential value" + "_" + "the photo ID from which the colony category was determined".
- "Location": Gutter, Shark Alley
- "Date": May, October
- "Presence of BBD": 0 (absence), 1 (presence)
- "Category": Normal colour with black band disease, Normal colour with no black band disease, Bleached with black band disease, Bleached with no black band disease, Dead.
- "Frequency": Binary indicator denoting whether the observed coral colony belongs to the specified health category ("Category") at a given site and date. 0 (colony not observed in that category), 1 (colony was observed in that category).
Code/software
Data were processed and analysed in R (version 4.3.2) using open-source packages including tidyverse (for data cleaning and plotting) and heatwaveR (for climatology and marine heatwave detection). The workflow is documented in the accompanying script Byrne_et_al_2025_BBD.Rmd, which imports and analyses coral health and temperature datasets from One Tree Island.
Access information
Data was derived from the following sources:
- All data are original and were collected by the authors at One Tree Island, southern Great Barrier Reef, between February 2024 and February 2025. Satellite sea surface temperature data were derived from the publicly available NOAA Coral Reef Watch (CRW) product (https://coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/), provided under the NOAA Open Data License. All data were generated by the authors during this study and are released under a CC0 public-domain waiver. No third-party copyrighted material is included.