Physiography, Ecology, and Sediments of Two Bermuda Patch Reefs

1971 ◽  
Vol 79 (6) ◽  
pp. 647-668 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Garrett ◽  
Donald L. Smith ◽  
Augustus O. Wilson ◽  
David Patriquin
Keyword(s):  
2019 ◽  
Vol 609 ◽  
pp. 33-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
RP Lyon ◽  
DB Eggleston ◽  
DR Bohnenstiehl ◽  
CA Layman ◽  
SW Ricci ◽  
...  

1998 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 122-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
TIMOTHY R. McCLANAHAN ◽  
NYAWIRA A. MUTHIGA

Many coral reefs in the Caribbean, and elsewhere, have undergone changes from hard coral to fleshy algal dominance over the past two decades which has often been interpreted as a localized response to eutrophication and fishing. Here, data on the abundance of hard corals and algae from lagoonal patch reefs distributed throughout a large (260 km2) remote reef atoll located approximately 30 km offshore from the sparsely-populated coast of Belize, Central America, are compared with a study of these patch reefs conducted 25 years previously. Data and observations indicate that these patch reefs have undergone a major change in their ecology associated with a 75% reduction in total hard coral, a 99% loss in the cover of Acropora cervicornis and A. palmata, and a 315% increase in algae, which are mostly erect brown algae species in the genera Lobophora, Dictyota, Turbinaria and Sargassum. Such changes have been reported from other Caribbean reefs during the 1980s, but not on such a remote reef and the present changes may be attributed primarily to both a disease that began killing Acropora in this region in the mid 1980s and a reduction in herbivory. The low level of herbivory may be attributable to the disease-induced loss of the sea urchin Diadema antillarum in 1983, or fishing of herbivorous fishes, but both explanations are speculative. The present density of fisherfolk is low, and their efforts are not targetted at herbivorous fishes, and population densities of D. antillarum 14 years after the mortality are <1 individual per 1000 m2, but there is no comparative data from before the die off. There is, however, no indication that these major changes occurred on the fore reef, because A. palmata is abundant and erect algal abundance is low. We suggest that reported changes in other Caribbean reefs are not necessarily or exclusively influenced by local human factors such as localized intense eutrophication or fishing.


2010 ◽  
Vol 297 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 609-620 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rowan C. Martindale ◽  
John-Paul Zonneveld ◽  
David J. Bottjer

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
M Munasik ◽  
AGUS SABDONO ◽  
AZELIA N. ASSYFA ◽  
DIAH PERMATA WIJAYANTI ◽  
SUGIYANTO SUGIYANTO ◽  
...  

Abstract. Munasik, Sabdono A, Assyfa AN, Wijayanti DP, Sugiyanto, Irwani, Pribadi R. 2020. Coral transplantation on a multilevel substrate of Artificial Patch Reefs: effect of fixing methods on the growth rate of two Acropora species. Biodiversitas 21: 1816-1822. Branching Acropora is generally used in coral transplantation to rehabilitate coral reefs. However, these corals are sensitive to environmental changes. Artificial Patch Reef  (APR) is an artificial structure that provides a multilevel hard substrate. The purpose of the study was to investigate the effectiveness of the APR structure to facilitate the growth and survival of Acropora branching. Two species Acropora aspera and Acropora copiosa were transplanted vertically and horizontally on a modular concrete block in different levels of APR situated in the shallow reef of Panjang Island, Central Java. The results showed that the coral growth rate varied from 96.7 to 346.9 cm3/month, while survival ranged from 30 to 100% after 8 months. Lower survival rate mostly was found in the upper level of APR. The statistical analyses showed that the growth rate of A. copiosa fragment was significantly higher than that of A. aspera  (p<0.05). Moreover, there were also significant differences in the treatments of transplantation method  (p<0.05) to enhance coral growth. However, multilevel substrates were not significantly influenced by coral growth. This study suggested that A. copiosa which has high-level complexity in branching pattern will be selected to apply in shallow reef rehabilitation with transplanted vertically.


Jurnal Segara ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 33
Author(s):  
Munasik Munasik ◽  
Agus Sabdono ◽  
Eunike Dorothea Hutapea ◽  
Sugiyanto Sugiyanto ◽  
Denny Nugroho Sugianto

A study of coral recruitment on Artificial Patch Reefs (APR) was performed in the marginal reef of Panjang Island, Central Java (Java Sea) to examine whether multilevel substrates of APR affect the density of coral recruits. Long-term and short-term observations were applied in yearly monitoring 2017-2019 and biweekly observations for 3 months in early 2019. Coral recruitment significantly varied among level substrates of APR (F(a,b) .05=3.08; p-value<0.05) and there was a significant difference at the beginning of the year (F(a,b) .05=5.52; p-value<0.05). The density of recruits on the substrates after 4 years post-deployment of APRs was 0.2 to 129.2 m-2 while the recruitment rate within short-term observations was 0.28-1.28 m-2 per month. The highest coral recruitment occurred at the middle to the top level of APR, while the lowest recruitment was found in the lowest level of APR. This is possibly due to high resuspension from the seabed. Oulastrea was dominant in both long- and short-term recruitment periods while Pocillopora was rare due to post-settlement mortality which trigger the overgrown coral-killing sponges. The results indicated that the adaptation of coral recruitment in the marginal environment is determined by the high recruitment of the small-colony coral species which possessed stress-tolerant for turbidity disturbance, such as Oulastrea crispata. This study suggested that the multilevel substrates, Artificial Patch Reefs (APR) are one of the reef rehabilitation methods which can be applied in the marginal environment enhancing coral recruitment.


2017 ◽  
Vol 68 (8) ◽  
pp. 1454 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. D. Pillans ◽  
R. C. Babcock ◽  
D. P. Thomson ◽  
M. D. E. Haywood ◽  
R. A. Downie ◽  
...  

Large mobile herbivorous fish that specialise in browsing large brown algae are particularly important on coral reefs because their activities mediate algal–coral competition. Despite this important ecological role, we have a poor understanding of the movement patterns of such large herbivorous fish, including Kyphosus bigibbus. Nineteen K. bigibbus captured near adjacent but distinct patch reefs were tagged with internal acoustic tags and their movements monitored for up to 20 months by an array of 60 acoustic receivers. Home-range estimates showed that movements of individuals from each patch reef encompassed different spatial extents and resulted in differences in habitat used by the two groups of fish. The average 50 and 95% kernel utilisation distribution for long-term resident fish was 0.27±0.03 and 1.61±0.30km2 respectively, ranges that represent the largest values for a herbivorous coral reef fish recorded to date. There was a significantly higher degree of fidelity among fish from the same school, and to particular patch reefs, despite the proximity of the reefs and substantial overlap between schools of conspecifics. A coefficient of sociality was used on pairs of fish and showed that there was no evidence that individuals were consistently detected together when they were detected by receivers away from their home reef. The variability of movement patterns among individuals of K. bigibbus results in an increased niche footprint for this important browser, potentially increasing reef resilience.


2013 ◽  
Vol 93 (8) ◽  
pp. 2265-2272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Akihisa Hattori ◽  
Takuro Shibuno

In local reef fish communities, species richness increases with increasing reef area. At Ishigaki Island, Japan, species richness is much lower on large reefs in the shallow back reef than that expected from random placement model simulations (RPMS). As three aggressive territorial herbivorous damselfish, Stegastes nigricans, Stegastes lividus and Hemiglyphidodon plagiometopon, coexist only on such large reefs, we focused on these species and examined patterns of their distribution and abundance on 84 patch reefs of various sizes (area and height). We also examined their aggressive intra- and interspecific behavioural interactions and habitat use on the two large reefs (the largest complex patch reef and the large flat patch reef) among the 84 patch reefs. While the abundance of both S. lividus and H. plagiometopon was highly correlated with patch reef area, that of S. nigricans was closely correlated with patch reef height. For S. nigricans and S. lividus, interspecific interactions occurred significantly more frequently than intraspecific interactions on the large flat patch reef. However, there was no significant difference in frequencies of the two interaction types on the largest complex patch reef, where they three-dimensionally segregated conspecific territories. This study suggested that reef height as well as reef area influence the distribution and abundance of these territorial herbivorous damselfish in the shallow back reef. As large patch reefs cannot be tall allometrically in shallow back reefs, relatively flat patch reefs may not have the high species richness expected from RPMS based on reef area.


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