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Controls on Coral-Ground Development along the Northern Mesoamerican Reef Tract

Coral-grounds are reef communities that colonize rocky substratum but do not form framework or three-dimensional reef structures. To investigate why, we used video transects and underwater photography to determine the composition, structure and status of a coral-ground community located on the edge...

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Autores principales: Rodríguez-Martínez, Rosa E., Jordán-Garza, Adán G., Maldonado, Miguel A., Blanchon, Paul
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2011
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3237443/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22194839
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0028461
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author Rodríguez-Martínez, Rosa E.
Jordán-Garza, Adán G.
Maldonado, Miguel A.
Blanchon, Paul
author_facet Rodríguez-Martínez, Rosa E.
Jordán-Garza, Adán G.
Maldonado, Miguel A.
Blanchon, Paul
author_sort Rodríguez-Martínez, Rosa E.
collection PubMed
description Coral-grounds are reef communities that colonize rocky substratum but do not form framework or three-dimensional reef structures. To investigate why, we used video transects and underwater photography to determine the composition, structure and status of a coral-ground community located on the edge of a rocky terrace in front of a tourist park, Xcaret, in the northern Mesoamerican Reef tract, Mexico. The community has a relatively low coral, gorgonian and sponge cover (<10%) and high algal cover (>40%). We recorded 23 species of Scleractinia, 14 species of Gorgonacea and 30 species of Porifera. The coral community is diverse but lacks large coral colonies, being dominated instead by small, sediment-tolerant, and brooding species. In these small colonies, the abundance of potentially lethal interactions and partial mortality is high but decreases when colonies are larger than 40 cm. Such characteristics are consistent with an environment control whereby storm waves periodically remove larger colonies and elevate sediment flux. The community only survives these storm conditions due to its slope-break location, which ensures lack of burial and continued local recruitment. A comparison with similar coral-ground communities in adjacent areas suggests that the narrow width of the rock terrace hinders sediment stabilization, thereby ensuring that communities cannot escape bottom effects and develop into three-dimensional reef structures on geological time scales.
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spelling pubmed-32374432011-12-22 Controls on Coral-Ground Development along the Northern Mesoamerican Reef Tract Rodríguez-Martínez, Rosa E. Jordán-Garza, Adán G. Maldonado, Miguel A. Blanchon, Paul PLoS One Research Article Coral-grounds are reef communities that colonize rocky substratum but do not form framework or three-dimensional reef structures. To investigate why, we used video transects and underwater photography to determine the composition, structure and status of a coral-ground community located on the edge of a rocky terrace in front of a tourist park, Xcaret, in the northern Mesoamerican Reef tract, Mexico. The community has a relatively low coral, gorgonian and sponge cover (<10%) and high algal cover (>40%). We recorded 23 species of Scleractinia, 14 species of Gorgonacea and 30 species of Porifera. The coral community is diverse but lacks large coral colonies, being dominated instead by small, sediment-tolerant, and brooding species. In these small colonies, the abundance of potentially lethal interactions and partial mortality is high but decreases when colonies are larger than 40 cm. Such characteristics are consistent with an environment control whereby storm waves periodically remove larger colonies and elevate sediment flux. The community only survives these storm conditions due to its slope-break location, which ensures lack of burial and continued local recruitment. A comparison with similar coral-ground communities in adjacent areas suggests that the narrow width of the rock terrace hinders sediment stabilization, thereby ensuring that communities cannot escape bottom effects and develop into three-dimensional reef structures on geological time scales. Public Library of Science 2011-12-14 /pmc/articles/PMC3237443/ /pubmed/22194839 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0028461 Text en Rodríguez-Martínez et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Rodríguez-Martínez, Rosa E.
Jordán-Garza, Adán G.
Maldonado, Miguel A.
Blanchon, Paul
Controls on Coral-Ground Development along the Northern Mesoamerican Reef Tract
title Controls on Coral-Ground Development along the Northern Mesoamerican Reef Tract
title_full Controls on Coral-Ground Development along the Northern Mesoamerican Reef Tract
title_fullStr Controls on Coral-Ground Development along the Northern Mesoamerican Reef Tract
title_full_unstemmed Controls on Coral-Ground Development along the Northern Mesoamerican Reef Tract
title_short Controls on Coral-Ground Development along the Northern Mesoamerican Reef Tract
title_sort controls on coral-ground development along the northern mesoamerican reef tract
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3237443/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22194839
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0028461
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