At indicated dates, individual corals (ramets) were visually assessed for bleaching, disease, and mortality. Corals were determined to be diseased by White band (white) when there was a band of white tissue traversing the branches progressing from the bottom to the top of the colony.

Corals were identified as diseased with Rapid Tissue Loss (RTL) when gently fanning by hand resulted in the dissociation of tissue from the coral's skeleton. Mortality was noted as  no (no mortality observed), partial (the minority of the colony was no longer covered with live tissue), mostly dead (the majority of the colony was no longer covered with live tissue), or dead (no observable tissue)

Bleaching was noted for those corals paling or entirely lacking in pigmentation.  A reference color card (Seibeck et al., 2006) was used as a pigmentation reference. The normal level of pigmentation was C3 or darker (not bleached). Colors lighter than C3 were considered bleached.