Communities Structure of Reef Corals
267
Table 7.5. Percent of cover of the bottom at slope of fringing reef off Cura<;ao Island by
main components of sessile benthos (Data by Bak and Luckhurst 1980)
Percent cover
Dominating corals
Depth, m By total sessile
Only by Species
Area covered by given
benthos
corals
species, % of that
covered only by coral
10
41
34
Montastrea annularis 50
20
46
35
Meandrina sp.
12
Agaricia agaricites
40
31
25
Agaricia lamarckii
19
Table 7.6. Percentage of projective cover of bottom surface by corals in different reef
zones of several reefs
Location
Zone, depths
Flat and
Upper part of
Middle part
reef edge
reef slope
of reef slope
(0-1 m)
(1-3 m)
(3-20m)
Guam I.
49
59
50
Central GBR
50-100
80-100
25-60
Cuba
73
58
36
Mindoro I.,
Philippines
35
46
16
Antille J.
25
35
18
Table 7.7. Biomass of main groups of benthos and fish on
one of the Puerto Rican reefs with dominating association of
coral Porites. (After Glynn 1973a)
Groups of benthos
Biomass, m- 2
Dry weight (kg)
Protein (g)
Macrophytes
1.02
32.5
Foraminiferans
0.13
1.8
Scleractinian corals
12.02
285.5
Zoantharians
0.001
0.4
Other zoobenthos
0.38
87.2
Bottom fish
0.006
3.6
Reference
Colgan (1981)
Wallace and Bull (1981)
Kiihlmann (1974)
Ross and Hodson (1981)
Bak (1977)
100% of bottom surface (Wallace and Bull 1981; Latypov 1985; Tables
7.3-7.8). On reefs of the Atlantic the percentage of cover is usually less and
comprises on submerged flat and on outer slope only 20-60% (Bright et al.
1984). In areas with a level of 30-60% cover the biomass of corals (dry
weight together with the skeleton) varied between 3 to 20 kg m -2, the