Journal
MARINE ECOLOGY PROGRESS SERIES
Volume 337, Issue -, Pages 1-13Publisher
INTER-RESEARCH
DOI: 10.3354/meps337001
Keywords
ENSO; biodiversity; climate change; degree heating weeks; meta-population; monitoring; remote sensing; seawater temperature
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
A field study of coral bleaching and coral communities was undertaken spanning 8 countries and similar to 35 degrees of latitude in 2005. This was combined with studies in southern Kenya and northeast Madagascar in 1998 and Mauritius in 2004 to develop a synoptic analysis of coral community structure, bleaching response, susceptibility of the communities to bleaching, and the relative risk of extinctions in western Indian Ocean coral reefs. Cluster analysis identified 8 distinct coral communities among the 91 sites sampled, with 2 distinct communities in northern South Africa and central Mozambique, a third in the central atolls of the Maldives, and 5 less differentiated groups, in a swath from southern Kenya to Mauritius, including Tanzania, the granitic islands of the Seychelles, northeast Madagascar, and Reunion. Massive Porites, Pavona, and Pociflopora dominated the central and northern Indian Ocean sites and, from historical records, replaced dominance by Acropora and Montipora. From southern Kenya to Mauritius, coral communities were less disturbed, with Acropora and Montipora dominating, and a mix of subdominants including branching Porites, Fungia, Galaxea, massive Porites, Pocillopora, and Synarea. The survey identified an area from southernmost Kenya to Tanzania as having the least disturbed and highest diversity reefs, and as being a regional priority for management. Taxa vulnerable to future extinction based on their response to warm water, population density, and commonness include largely low-diversity genera with narrow environmental ranges, such as Gyrosmilia interrupta, Plesiastrea versipora, PlerogyTa sinuosai and Physogyra lichtensteini.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available