260
Communities of Corals in Reef Ecosystems
of monospecific, interspecific, or reproductional bisexual groups; (3)
interorganismic relationships: commensalism, symbiosis, antagonism, preypredator; (4) various stochastic events including the extreme ones, like
hurricanes, floods, Acanthaster plagues; and (5) anthropogenic influence.
Most reef corals dispose of a wide scale of ecological adaptations, being
able to colonize practically all zones of the reef slope starting with the
shallows of the reef flat (Figs. 7.2, 7.3). Their species diversity manifested
by the total numbers of species does not significantly change within the scale
of depths from 8 down to 60 m either on reefs of the Atlantic or the
Indo-Pacific (Fig. 7.4). Only on reef shallows does the number of species in
Depth intervals
Coral species
0-5 m
5-10 m
10-20 m 20-30 m 30-40 m
>40m
Echinopora lamellosa
50 m
Favia pallida
50 m
Favia speciosa
---..- 100 m
Favites abdita
50 m
Goniastrea pectinata
-80 m
Platyqura daedalea
Galaxea fascicularis
"'Lobophyllia corymbosa ---Echinophyllia aspera
---- ... 180 m
Stephanocoenia
~----- -95 m
michelini
Aqaricia aqaricites
75 m
Leptoseris cucullata
85 m
Montastrea annularis
85 m
Psammocora contiqua
Pocillopora damicomis
---- 78m
Acropora nasuta
--Stylophora pistillata
40 m
Seriatopora histrix
Porites lutea
50 m
Fig. 7.2. Distribution of some common corals on the outer reef slopes of the Pacific
atolls. (Data by Kuhlmann 1983)