Condition of the coral community in three reef complexes of the Seaflower Biosphere Reserve, Colombian Caribbean
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.26640/22159045.2024.633Keywords:
Coral community, Functional groups, Algal turf, Herbivores, Coral decline, SeaflowerAbstract
Despite the contemporary trends of generalized coral loss, it is presumed, in part from lack of information, that remote oceanic coral reefs must be in a better condition that continental ones, if geographical distance would keep them away from direct human pressures. This work was aimed at determining if the coral community of the oceanic atolls of the Seaflower Biosphere Reserve (Albuquerque, Courtown and Bajo Nuevo) in the southwestern Caribbean, Colombia, have also experienced changes towards new configurations. To analyze benthic cover, photo quadrat transects were evaluated. To study algal turfs in interaction with live coral tissue, cores were extracted. In Courtown, herbivores were quantified through stationary censuses. There were 48 hard coral species, but the benthic cover was dominated by non-reef building organisms (59.1-61.7 %), especially algal turfs. In the algal turf-coral interactions, 15 groups of turf functional groups were identified. In Courtown, 20 herbivore species of 5 functional groups were recorded, signaling a low functional redundancy in comparison to continental Colombian Caribbean reefs, and thus a high vulnerability to species loss. These results show that the studied reefs, despite being remote, show changes in dominance from corals to macroalgae, especially turf algae.
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