Colony-level coral demographic data from Japan & Australia (2016-2019)

The persistent exposure of coral communities to more variable abiotic regimes is assumed to augment their resilience to future climatic variability. Yet, while the determinants of coral population resilience across species remain unknown, we are unable to predict the winners and losers across reef ecosystems exposed to increasingly variable conditions. Using annual surveys of 3171 coral individuals across Australia and Japan (2016-2019), we explored spatial variation across the short- and long-term dynamics of competitive, stress-tolerant, and weedy assemblages to evaluate how thermal variability mediates the structural composition of coral communities. Here this dataset contains the raw colony-level data collected during these annual surveys, detailing the size, survival, and recruitment of coral colonies within a series of permenant plots arranged throughout the reef communities of Okinawa, Kochi (both Japan), the Solitary Islands Marine Park, and Heron Island (both Australia). This data set facilitates the comparison of coral population dynamics between tropical and subtropical ecoregions and between different taxonomic and morpho-functional groups.

Methods
For methodological details please see Cant et al. (2023) Coral assemblages at higher latitudes favour short-term potential over long-term performance. Ecology.

珊瑚群落持续暴露于波动幅度更大的非生物环境中，被认为可增强其对未来气候波动的恢复力。然而，尽管跨物种珊瑚种群恢复力的决定因素仍未明确，我们仍无法预测日益波动的环境条件下珊瑚礁生态系统中的优势类群与劣势类群。
本研究依托2016—2019年间对澳大利亚与日本境内3171个珊瑚个体开展的年度调查，探究了竞争型、耐胁迫型与机会主义型珊瑚类群短期与长期动态的空间变异，以评估温度波动如何调控珊瑚群落的结构组成。
本数据集包含上述年度调查中采集的原始菌落级数据，详细记录了分布于日本冲绳、高知县，以及澳大利亚孤岛海洋公园、赫伦岛各珊瑚礁群落内一系列永久样地中的珊瑚菌落的尺寸、存活状态与种群补充情况。本数据集可用于对比热带与亚热带生态区之间，以及不同分类学类群与形态功能群之间的珊瑚种群动态。

方法
相关方法学细节请参见Cant等人（2023）发表于《Ecology》的论文《高纬度珊瑚群落更倾向于短期潜力而非长期表现》。