Oxygen supersaturation could protect reef-building corals against acute thermal stress

Ongoing climate change is constraining the availability of molecular oxygen (O2) on coral reefs. The field has recently invested considerable resources to quantify the effects of hypoxia on corals. However, drivers of reef oxygen decline will not only expose corals to more frequent episodes of hypoxia but also limit peak daytime oxygen levels. Here, we test the theory of oxygen-mediated thermal performance on three reef-building corals by comparing their thermal thresholds under three bulk seawater oxygen concentrations in low flow conditions: 10 mg O2 L⁻¹, 6.5 mg O2 L⁻¹, and < 2 mg O2 L⁻¹. We hypothesized that when the photosynthetic machinery of their microalgal symbionts was impaired, corals in higher oxygen treatments would use oxygen from the bulk water to supplement their heightened metabolic demands under heat stress, thereby increasing their thermal thresholds. These datasets include mortality, photochemical efficiency, and metabolic rates for three coral species from the Red..., , # Data from: Oxygen supersaturation could protect reef-building corals against acute thermal stress

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.7sqv9s55s](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.7sqv9s55s)

## Description of the data and file structure

This dataset includes data from the experiments conducted in *Oxygen supersaturation could protect reef-building corals from acute heat stress.* 3 identical thermal ramping experiments were performed on 3 coral species, under 3 different oxygen regimes. Here we include the respiration and net photosynthesis mean values, the average PAM per temperature and the mortality data per temperature (as a percentage).

### Files and variables

#### File: Dataset_1.xlsx

**Sheet:** TPC

This sheet includes the mean metabolic rates per temperature that were used to construct the thermal performance curves (TPC) in Figure 4.

##### Variables

* Curve_ID - individual performance curve
* Species - coral species
* Treatment - oxygen treatment
* temp - temperature (°C)
* rate - ...,