Contact: Barbara K. Kennedy
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Penn State

Global Warming Causes Outbreak of Rare Algae Associated with Corals, Study Finds (2 of 2)

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

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Related news release: Global warming causes outbreak of rare algae associated with corals, study finds