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- Title
Extraordinarily high coral cover on a nearshore, high-latitude reef in south-west Australia.
- Authors
Thomson, D. P.; Frisch, A. J.
- Abstract
Photographic line transects were used to quantify the benthic community at Hall Bank, a small, nearshore, high-latitude reef in south-west Australia. On one of the seven transects, the coral cover was 72.5% (mean = 52.6 ± 0.45%), which is the highest ever recorded coral cover at or beyond 32°S. There were no macro-algae, possibly due to the high density of herbivorous sea-urchins (mean = 5.0 ± 0.8 m). Fourteen species of scleractinian corals dominated the benthos, seven of which were from the family Faviidae. Given that Hall Bank is at the limit of environmental tolerance for reef formation, it represents a valuable research opportunity for understanding the factors that build and maintain coral reef biodiversity and resilience.
- Subjects
AUSTRALIA; REEFS; FAVIIDAE; BENTHOS microbiology; MARINE biodiversity; ECOLOGICAL resilience; BENTHIC animals
- Publication
Coral Reefs, 2010, Vol 29, Issue 4, p923
- ISSN
0722-4028
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1007/s00338-010-0650-1