Many of the shallow lagoon colonies of branching Millepora, or fire coral, also bleached during the 2009 event. The coral is normally brownish yellow. Like Goniopora, Millepora is another kind of "weedy" species that seems to grow over and possibly choke out other species. If I had to choose two species to be chopped back somewhat, these two would probably have been the ones. However, subsequent bleaching events in 2014, 2014 and 2016 killed off nearly all of the lagoon Millepora and much of that on the seaward reef as well.
The next three shots show a single Millepora colony over time. The first was taken on 8 March 2009.
By 27 September 2009 the colony had bleached out. (This one was shot from the other side of the colony.)
By 6 June 2010, most of the colony had died, but a few branches on either side had survived and regained their zooxanthellae. However, the rest of the colony died in subsequent bleaching events, as did nearly all of the lagoon Millepora.
The columnar form of Millepora, usually considered the same species as the branching one above, seemed to fare better during the first bleaching event, but much of it died in subsequent bleaching.
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