1. The extent to which populations persist under environmental stress depends on the reproductive output of individuals that survive the stress. In coral systems, corals bleach in response to stress from elevated water temperature. However, little is known of the extent to which thermal stress impairs the reproductive capacity of the survivors over the following years, limiting the capacity to predict how populations will persist in the Anthropocene.
2. Using histology to quantify the abundance and size of oocytes and spermaries per polyp, we tested how bleaching impairs the reproductive response of the coral Pocillopora meandrina over two reproductive seasons following the 2015 mass bleaching event in the Hawaiian Islands.
3. We found that smaller colonies not only had a greater probability of bleaching but also suffered greater reproductive impacts over a longer time. In contrast, larger colonies generated comparable reproductive output regardless of bleaching severity, although bleached colonies generated smaller oocytes the year after bleaching.
4. These results show that reproductive impacts of bleaching are more complex and size‐specific than commonly assumed. Therefore, estimates of bleaching mortality may underestimate the true impact of thermal stress on populations, especially as populations lose larger individuals from repeated and co‐occurring stressors.

中文翻译：

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压力的遗产：多年以后，珊瑚白化会影响繁殖

1. 人口在环境压力下持续生存的程度取决于在压力下生存的个体的生殖输出。在珊瑚系统中，珊瑚会因水温升高而漂白。然而，鲜为人知的是，在接下来的几年中，热应力在多大程度上损害了幸存者的生殖能力，从而限制了预测人类在人类世将如何生存的能力。
2. 使用组织学量化每个息肉的卵母细胞和精子的数量和大小，我们测试了漂白在夏威夷群岛2015年大规模漂白事件发生后的两个繁殖季节对珊瑚蓝眼猴的生殖反应的影响。
3. 我们发现较小的菌落不仅具有更大的漂白可能性，而且在更长的时间内也遭受了更大的繁殖影响。相反，尽管漂白菌落在漂白后的一年产生了较小的卵母细胞，但不管漂白的严重程度如何，较大的菌落都能产生可比的繁殖产量。
4. 这些结果表明，漂白的生殖影响比通常假定的更为复杂，而且具有特定的大小。因此，漂白死亡率的估计值可能低估了热应激对种群的真正影响，尤其是当种群因反复出现的共同应激源而失去更大的个体时。