About the Authors

Luisa A. Marcelino

l-marcelino@northwestern.edu

Affiliations Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, United States of America, Department of Zoology, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America

Mark W. Westneat

Affiliation Department of Zoology, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America

Valentina Stoyneva

Affiliation Department of Biomedical Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, United States of America

Jillian Henss

Affiliations Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, United States of America, Department of Zoology, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America

Jeremy D. Rogers

Affiliation Department of Biomedical Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, United States of America

Andrew Radosevich

Affiliation Department of Biomedical Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, United States of America

Vladimir Turzhitsky

Affiliation Department of Biomedical Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, United States of America

Margaret Siple

Affiliations Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, United States of America, Department of Zoology, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America

Andrew Fang

Affiliation Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, United States of America

Timothy D. Swain

Affiliations Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, United States of America, Department of Zoology, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America

Jennifer Fung

Affiliation Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, United States of America

Vadim Backman

Affiliation Department of Biomedical Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Measured and analyzed optical and structural properties of corals using LEBS: VS JR VB. Built phylogenetic tree: MWW JH. Carried out the phylogenetic analysis: MWW JH TDS. Carried out correlation, clustering and linear regression analysis and measurement uncertainty: LAM VB. Built bleaching response dataset: JH MS LAM. Collected and cataloged the samples: JH MS VS. Measured and analyzed optical properties using integrating sphere and performed light-amplification experiments: VS JR VB. Conceived and designed the experiments: LAM VB MWW JR. Performed the experiments: JH MS VS AF JF AR VT. Analyzed the data: JH TDS MWW LAM VB JR. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: MWW LAM VB. Wrote the paper: LAM MWW TDS VB.