The final predicted adaptation that coral will have to generate regarding temperature involves rising sea levels. Sea level rises due to the green house effect and may drown many corals. Increased depths of the existing reefs will move many of the species out of the photic zone, killing Zooxanthellae in which coral can not live without. The predicted 10-meter rise in sea level is largely do to increased melting of the polar ice caps. It is theorized that the tremendous diversity in species has insured coral survival.
Different species are particularly adept to surviving different conditions and catastrophes.
The Elkhorn coral skeleton is very strong and can withstand tremendous wave forces. Succession stages can be compared to that of a deciduous forest. Many communities are controlled by systematic or catastrophic events that drive the community in a direction. This direction could have been determined hundreds of years ago. It is believed that the current patterns of the reefs resemble Jamaican patterns rather than what has been more of the constant patterns in the fossil record.