nutritional depletion of bleached corals. However, these fishes do
not exhibit significant declines in local abundance; adult corallivores
may be relatively immune to negative nutritional effects
as they can either expand their foraging area to feed on unbleached
corals or they can switch to feed on alternative prey corals which
are more resistant to bleaching (e.g., Pratchett et al., 2004). In
contrast, juvenile coral-feeders may be more susceptible to negative
effects during minor bleaching events as they show very
limited ability to move between coral colonies until they reach a
size of 30e35 mm and rely on their initial settlement coral to
meet all of their nutritional requirements (Cole and Pratchett,
2011). If bleached coral has a reduced nutritional content relative
to healthy unbleached corals then juveniles inhabiting bleached
corals could be at a significant disadvantage and may experience
increased mortality rates or considerable sub-lethal effects on
growth and condition.