Fiji - Matuku (FJMT12)
Part of the regional summaries: Fiji - Matuku, Fiji - Moala Group (Moala / Totoya / Matuku), and Fiji - Lau
More info
Fiji (NOAA CRW virtual station)A murky channel reef off Matuku's west side, near a barren lagoon floor, where large single-species stands of Pavona clavus and Porites rus cover nearly 20 m of bottom alongside several kinds of leather coral. Coral cover was 26%. Surveyed on the Living Oceans Foundation's Global Reef Expedition.
E dua na cakau ena dua na sala ni wai (channel) e veidrukai ena yasana i ra i Matuku, voleka ina dua na botoni ni loma ni cakau (lagoon) e lala, e tu kina na isoqosoqo levu ni mataqali lase duadua ga, na Pavona clavus kei na Porites rus, e ubia e voleka ni 20 m ni botoni, vata kei na vica na mataqali lase malumu vakakuli (leather coral). Na ubi ni lase (coral cover) e 26%.
AI translation of this summary; the English is authoritative. (low confidence)
CTD-cast midpoint of 26.9–27.0°C
Three independent survey stations shown with the program’s logo — click one to see how far it is from this site.
Two other CRD dive sites with their own pages within 5 km shown in orange — click a marker to open its page.
Site description
Setting
FJMT12 (Matuku, Lau Archipelago): surveyed 6 Jun 2013 during the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation Global Reef Expedition. The expedition's site notes place FJMT12 in a channel off a fringing reef on Matuku's west side, with poor visibility near a barren lagoon floor.
General benthic features
The same notes record isolated coral colonies of kinds usually found in lagoons as common, and large single-species stands of Pavona clavus and Porites rus covering almost 20 m of substrate. Several species of leather corals were also common, including Lobophytum and Sarcophyton.
Coral cover
- Reference: Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation, Global Reef Expedition (in situ transect)
- Coral cover 26% (the expedition's in situ transects).
- Transect mean 26 ± 0.3% SE (n = 4 transects; Living Oceans Foundation per-transect benthic data); the headline above is this all-transect mean.
Stressors
The Living Oceans Foundation transects here recorded 0.8% cyanobacteria and no recently dead coral; they have no bleaching, disease, or crown-of-thorns field. The expedition's Matuku site notes name no stressor at this team-surveyed channel station. Island-level context, not an observation here: the same notes record recent mortality and Drupella snails on branching acroporids at Matuku's fore-reef stations FJMT10 and FJMT11.
Comparisons with other data
Coral cover — external cross-reference (Reef Check). Two independent measurements, reported side by side and deliberately not averaged. Living Oceans Foundation Global Reef Expedition: 26% hard coral (2013). Reef Check: 39% at North of Arua, 0.94 km away (1999, 1 survey). The two are 14 years apart (the expedition later). Methods differ (Living Oceans Foundation diver transect vs Reef Check point-intercept transect). Reef Check site positions are approximate; at 0.94 km apart the two surveys may have sampled different patches of the same reef, which is the main caveat on this comparison.
No underwater photographs from this station are on file.
Independent surveys nearby
Within 5 km, 3 independent survey stations recorded hard coral cover in 1999. The most recent nearby survey is from 1999, so these values predate recent heat stress. This site's own estimate (26%) sits 13 points below the range of these station-year means up to 2 km away (39–56%); the methods differ, so the comparison is context, not a like-for-like test.
Collected by other programs using different methods (Reef Check uses point-intercept transects), so these are context for the figures above, not a like-for-like comparison. Where a station was surveyed more than once, the cell shows either the range of its values or, as a single value, the mean of surveys made in one year. Station names are not dive-site names.
| Agency | Site / location | Date | Hard coral cover (%) | Distance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reef Check | North of Arua | 1999 | 39% | 0.94 km |
| Reef Check | Maccadame Reef | 1999 | 56%, mean of 2 surveys (2 m and 10 m) | 1.37 km |
| Reef Check | Dabu Passage | 1999 | 51% | 4.63 km |
Data & links
- Download benthic survey data (CSV) ↗
- Download all LOF-GRE data (933 sites) ↗
- Photo portfolio ↗
- Coral Reef Diagnostics page for this area ↗
Data are from the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation Global Reef Expedition, Coral Reef Diagnostics, and the organizations named in the data sources above.
© Coral Reef Diagnostics.