We thank the Gates Coral Lab, especially Vojtěch Prokůpek, for assistance with fieldwork, coral fragmenting, and sampling. We are grateful to Nicole Cernohorsky, and Ariana S. Huffmyer for their valuable comments on the statistical analysis and RStudio programming. This research was supported by the Paul G. Allen Foundation. This is HIMB contribution XX and SOEST contribution XX (will be completed upon acceptance).