![]() We suggest the highly diverse Rongelap Atoll to the east of Bikini may have contributed larval propagules to facilitate the partial resilience of coral biodiversity in the absence of additional anthropogenic threats. There was no classic mushroom cloud rising to the stratosphere, but. It is well known that the crew of the Daigo Fukuryu Maru fishing boat were exposed to nuclear fallout as a result. The wider, exterior cloud is actually just a condensation cloud caused by the Wilson chamber effect, and was very brief. In 1954, the USA conducted six thermonuclear tests (commonly known as the Operation Castle, referred to below as the H-bomb tests) over the Bikini Atoll and other sites in the Marshall Islands. Twelve species are recorded from Bikini for the first time. The ‘Baker’ explosion, part of Operation Crossroads, a nuclear weapon test by the United States military at Bikini Atoll, Micronesia, on July 25, 1946. Of these losses, 16 species are obligate lagoonal specialists and 12 have wider habitat compatibility. Fourteen of these losses may be pseudo-losses due to inconsistent taxonomy between the two studies or insufficient sampling in the second study, however 28 species appear to represent genuine losses. We found that 42 coral species may be locally extinct at Bikini. A total of 183 scleractinian coral species was recorded, compared to 126 species recorded in the previous study (excluding synonomies, 148 including synonomies). Species composition in 2002 was assessed and compared to that seen prior to nuclear testing. Five decades after a series of nuclear tests began, we provide evidence that 70% of the Bikini Atoll zooxanthellate coral assemblage is resilient to large-scale anthropogenic disturbance.
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