Upwelling and the persistence of coral-reef frameworks in the eastern tropical Pacific, carbonate data, chlorophyll data, and others from 2015-08-21 to 2019-04-05 (NCEI Accession 0239049)

The data described here comes from a study comparing reef habitat alteration along an upwelling gradient in the eastern Tropical Pacific from 2015-08-21 to 2019-04-05. Standardized blocks of clean, massive Porites were placed at six reef sites in the eastern tropical Pacific, in the strongly and more weakly upwelling Gulfs of Panama (GoP) and Chiriqui (GoC), respectively. Sites were instrumented with HOBO Pro v2 temperature loggers and SAMI-CO2 pCO2 loggers to characterize the unique thermal and carbonate-chemistry conditions of each gulf (see temperatureDataSubmission.xlsx and co2DataSubmission.xlsx in data package). Satellite products were used to examine differences in sea-surface productivity (see chlorophylDataSubmission.xlsx in data package) and surveys were conducted to quantify the abundance of important grazing taxa, such as parrotfish and urchins, found within the study sites (see parrotDataSubmission.xlsx and urchinDataSubmission.xlsx in data package). After two years in situ, the Porites blocks were collected and scanned using high-resolution computed tomography (CT) to volumetrically quantify both endolithic and epilithic habitat alteration (see carbonateDataSubmission.xlsx in data package). Scan-volumes were further classified into functional groups according to morphology to quantify external bioerosion by fish and sea urchins, as well as the calcifying and bioeroding activity of crustose coralline algae, scleractinian corals, mollusks, annelids, and barnacles (see coverDataSubmission.xlsx in data package).