Part of the regional summaries: Fiji - Nayau, Fiji - Northern Lau (Vanua Balavu / Cicia / Nayau), and Fiji - Lau
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Fiji (NOAA CRW virtual station)A classic spur-and-groove reef on Nayau's northwest side, with the best coral on top of the spurs and grooves scoured and filled with coral rubble, at 52% cover. The survey team's notes for Nayau's three stations describe Acropora build-ups with Tydemania macroalgae creeping up their sides and Drupella snails on several colonies. Surveyed on the Living Oceans Foundation's Global Reef Expedition.
E dua na cakau vakaivakarau ni spur-and-groove dina ena yasana i vualiku-i-ra i Nayau, e tiko na lase vinaka duadua ena dakuna ni spur, ka na groove e savata na ua ka vonu ena tikitiki ni lase mate (rubble), ka 52% na ubi ni lase (coral cover). Na ivola ni ilawalawa ni vakadidike (survey team's notes) me baleta na tolu na stesoni e Nayau e vakamacalataka na build-up ni Acropora, ka tubu cake ena kedra yasana na lumi Tydemania (macroalgae), kei na Drupella (snails) ena vica na lase.
AI translation of this summary; the English is authoritative. (low confidence)
CTD-cast midpoint of 27.1–27.2°C
Three other CRD dive sites with their own pages within 5 km shown in orange — click a marker to open its page.
🗺 Detailed map of the Global Reef Expedition dive sites, Nayau, Fiji (Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation; opens in a new window)
Site description
Coral cover
- Reference: Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation, Global Reef Expedition (in situ transect)
- Transect mean 52 ± 3.6% SE (n = 5 transects; Living Oceans Foundation per-transect benthic data); the headline above is this all-transect mean.
Stressors
The Living Oceans Foundation transects here recorded 5.6% cyanobacteria and no recently dead coral.
Comparisons with other data
The expedition's own site table classifies FJNA39 as a fringing reef on an intermediate aspect, surveyed on the fore reef, outside the lagoon. Alongside the hard coral already reported for this site, the same transects recorded 16% crustose coralline algae, 10% turf, 0.6% macroalgae, and 5.6% cyanobacteria. Non-living substrate came to 40% pavement, 2.8% dead coral, 2.4% rubble, and 2.4% sand. Paired fish transects recorded about 39 fish species per transect and about 8.3 kg per 100 m2 of biomass. The benthic figures are means of all of this station's own transects in the expedition's per-transect benthic records, and the fish figures come from its paired fish transects; all are survey results, not photographic estimates.
Other notes
Survey team's site notes: All sites (FJNA39, FJNA40, FJNA38) were located on the north west side of the island on a shallow fore reef slope. Large reef build up with acroporids made up the majority of reef morphologies. At the base of reef build ups were large piles of rubble. Macroalgae (Tydemania expeditionis) was also coming on the sides of reef build ups. Drupella was found on several Acropora colonies. Large plating/sheeting colonies of Diploastrea were prominent at 15 m. FJNA39 was a classic spur and groove morphology with higher coral cover on the tops of the spurs. The grooves were scoured with large pieces of coral rubble sediment infill.
No underwater photographs from this station are on file.
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 and Coral Reef Diagnostics.
© Coral Reef Diagnostics.