SVG - Mayreau Gardens

Setting

Mayreau Gardens sits off Mayreau in the Tobago Cays, dived on 26 September and 1 October 2019 to about 24 m. Water in several frames is green and slightly turbid, consistent with the silty patch-reef character of the wider vent area.

General benthic features

Anderson's frames show a classic eastern Caribbean sponge-and-gorgonian reef rather than a coral-framework one: the standing structure is dominated by big brown tube and vase sponges, red and orange encrusting sponges, and a forest of sea rods, sea plumes, and sea fans rising off low, algal-crusted carbonate pavement, with crinoids tucked into crevices (e.g., Image 1).

1

Stony corals are present but subordinate - mounding and encrusting heads, small brain-type colonies, and low knobby colonies scattered between the sponges, with clean white sand patches in the hollows (e.g., Image 3).

3

Coral cover

• Reference: Claude CV point count (this site's photos)
• Coral cover: 7.0% — a blind Claude computer-vision point count of 33 of Anderson's edited photographs (20 points per photo; water, fish, and obstructions excluded). The photos are from the 30 September 2019 dive; the median is 5.0%. Many of these frames are fish and open-water shots, so the low value reflects photo selection more than the reef itself.

Stressors

No corallivores evident.

Fish and other fauna

The fish life is the standout: clouds of small blue mid-water planktivores over the reef edge, a passing wall of blue-and-yellow schooling fish, and in two frames a dense, hundreds-strong school of silvery-purple fish hanging over a thick carpet of green macroalgae (e.g., Image 2, Image 4, Image 5).

245

Comparisons with other data

A shallow, silty patch reef off Mayreau in the Tobago Cays where a natural volcanic CO2 seep bubbles up through red-algae-covered rock, used as a natural ocean-acidification analog site with tagged coral colonies (Porites astreoides, Montastraea cavernosa, Orbicella faveolata) sampled along a vent-to-control gradient. Nearby "Mayreau Gardens" itself is described in the dive notes as a lusher patch with boulder star coral, orange elkhorn-like colonies, sea fans, and crinoids, hosting spiny lobster, and large schools of blue chromis and creole wrasse.