Tonga - Vava'u (TOVA48)

General benthic features

Off Vava'u (station CTD cast to 19.7 m), this stretch of reef reads more like a rubble-strewn pavement than a coral wall — turf and crustose algae blanket most of the benthos, and coral cover holds at a modest 22 percent (e.g., Image 1).

1

What coral there is tends toward the massive and mounding: broad massive domes rise like sleeping boulders from the rubble, their surfaces a soft quilted tan, occasionally split by the natural seam where two neighboring colonies have grown together over the decades (e.g., Image 2, Image 3).

23

Nearby, a narrow crevice slices through the reef rock, its sandy floor glowing where sunlight pours down from the gap above, and a couple of damselfish hold station in the current there (e.g., Image 4).

4

It is a quiet, algae-dominated Tongan seascape rather than a riot of color — a handful of long-lived giants persisting patiently among the rubble.

Coral cover

• Reference: Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation, Global Reef Expedition (in situ transect)
• Coral cover: 22%.
• Live hard coral measured on in situ benthic transects during the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation Global Reef Expedition, against total algal cover (all algal groups) of 68% of the benthos.
• Transect data are this site's authoritative cover value; no computer vision or image-derived product overrides it.
• Transect mean 22 ± 2.5% 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 4.9% cyanobacteria and no recently dead coral, and they carry no bleaching, disease, or crown-of-thorns starfish field. Anderson's sample sheet records none of the target Pocillopora ('no Pdam') at this station, so no colony was sampled or scored for condition. Island-level context, not an observation at this station: the Living Oceans Foundation Tonga field report names Culcita sea stars and Drupella snails as Vava'u's main coral predators and notes localized crown-of-thorns starfish outbreaks in the central lagoon and around Treasure Island.

Comparisons with other data

Apart from the Living Oceans Foundation survey shown here, we found no other surveys at this site as of 2026. If you would like to share yours, please email us.