Indonesia - Komodo NP: Bonsai Rock

General benthic features

The two wide frames capture the two faces of this reef that his notes describe. The first is the spectacular one: a near-continuous field of pale lavender-gray corymbose and digitate Acropora, running unbroken to the limit of visibility, with hundreds of red-orange anthias hanging above it and a rust-brown soft-coral bush and chartreuse patches for contrast - his most impressive corals at 5 m, and effectively a monospecific stand at that scale (e.g., Image 5).

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The second is the other end: a dim, hazy, low-relief slope under a school of yellowtail fusiliers, where the substrate is mostly dark red-brown turf and encrusting algae with only scattered cream corymbose Acropora, small foliose plates, and blue vase sponges - consistent with his note that the reef eventually became more algal-dominated, and with his reading that low relief here reflects strong current (e.g., Image 3).

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The close substrate frame says the same thing at 30 cm: a small lavender knobby pocilloporid colony surrounded by brown and orange encrusting algae and turf, red macroalgae, small tunicates, and one cream mushroom coral (e.g., Image 1).

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Coral cover

Coral cover: 18% — a blind Claude computer-vision point count of 66 of Anderson's edited photographs (20 points per photo; water, fish, and obstructions excluded). Other computer-vision methods are listed in the method table. These are computer-vision indices over photographs, not a diver transect, and with one frame at near-total Acropora cover and another at heavy turf, the site average depends heavily on which frames went into the run. Anderson is still comparing computer-vision models, and these figures will be updated as the methods improve.

Stressors

No bleaching, no disease lesions, and nothing man-made. No crown-of-thorns starfish (COTS) or other corallivores evident.

Fish and other fauna

The two remaining frames are macros of the invertebrate life: a large nudibranch, teal with a bold black reticulate pattern and rounded tubercles, on pink crustose coralline algae; and a second, black with a brilliant blue marginal line and blue-tipped appendages, crossing pale sponges (e.g., Image 2, Image 4).

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Comparisons with other data

Also on record for this site: At 5-10 m, the hard coral community became more complex: small massive poritids, Pocillopora eydouxi, Pocillopora acuta, Seriatopora hystrix, Diploastrea. average live coral cover still high @ 20-25 m, Pachyseris, few large fish, though occasional large snapper and batfish. Many never-before-seen plating coral species. Wall (deep) dominated by non-coral invertebrates in many places. Very high fish biomass in areas, albeit with low mean size. Acropora growing to just below surface (0.5 m).

Dive record

One dive, 22 January 2019, 07:52, 58 minutes, max 27.7 m by his log, 25-26 degrees C, and 10 m visibility, which he called poor.