N. GBR - Blue (AU116157)

Setting

Unnamed Reef 116's third and final dive of the day found a murky leeward reef, 3-5 m of visibility, with an exceptional coral community in the 5-10 m band, where Anderson recorded up to 90-95% live cover on individual transects.

General benthic features

The photographs show whole frames of coral with no visible rock, tiered Echinopora rosettes and bottlebrush Acropora climbing a bommie face into the haze, and a broad sheet of plating and encrusting Porites spreading meters across, edged by golden fire coral and one yellow sponge (e.g., Image 4, Image 5).

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One frame is a single dome-shaped thicket of fine gold branches nearly two meters across, with a vivid blue digitate colony tucked at its foot and glassfish sheltering underneath (e.g., Image 1).

1

Another shows corymbose Acropora above and a pale, whitish fine-branched thicket below (e.g., Image 2).

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Acropora was the most common coral genus on this station's transects (35% of the benthos), followed by Echinopora (17%), Porites (7.0%), Montipora (2.7%), Pocillopora (2.3%), and Fungia and Stylophora (1.3% each); bare substrate covered 0.3%, behind macroalgae (11%), the largest non-coral class. Among the algal classes on this station's transects, macroalgae (11%) led, followed by cyanobacteria (10%) and turf (5.7%).

Coral cover

• Reference: Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation, Global Reef Expedition (in situ transect)
• The expedition's in situ point-count transects at this station recorded 70% live coral cover against 29% total algal cover.
• Transect mean 70 ± 8.0% SE (n = 3 transects; Living Oceans Foundation per-transect benthic data); the headline above is the expedition's station value.

Stressors

Needle coral (Seriatopora hystrix) told a mixed story here: dying colonies in the productive shallow band, but healthy S. hystrix on one of the site's best transects. No crown-of-thorns starfish (COTS) or other corallivores evident.

Fish and other fauna

A huge school of unidentified fish, giant trevally, and barracuda made for a memorable dive.

Comparisons with other data

No other surveys have been conducted at this site to date. Within 5 km, one independent station, XL Catlin Seaview Survey at transect 15023, 4.98 km away, read 26–32% between 2012 and 2016.

Other notes

Aspect: Anderson's field notes describe a murky leeward reef sloping down to 25 m, the wording printed here; the expedition's 933-site table lists the station's exposure as 'exposed'.