Expansion of a colonial ascidian following consecutive mass coral bleaching at Lizard Island, Australia

Mass coral bleaching is challenging today's coral reefs. However, our understanding of dynamics in benthic space holders, following such disturbances, is limited. To address this, we quantified successional dynamics of the ascidian, Didemnum cf. molle using a series of temporally and spatially matched photoquadrats across both the 2016 and 2017 mass coral bleaching events on the Great Barrier Reef. Unlike corals, D. cf. molle appeared to flourish in the warm temperatures and rapidly expanded. Indeed, colony density increased nearly 6-fold over two years with one quadrat experiencing an increase of over 1000 ind. m(-2). However, this increase did not simply track the increase in space due to coral mortality, but may have benefitted from reduced predation or increased nutrient availability following mass coral mortality. This study highlights the potential for D. cf molle to expand under bleaching conditions and to become a more prominent component of future reef configurations.