Powell, AL and Hepburn, LJ and Smith, DJ and Bell, JJ (2010) Patterns of Sponge Abundance Across a Gradient of Habitat Quality in the Wakatobi Marine National Park, Indonesia. The Open Marine Biology Journal, 4 (1). pp. 31-38. DOI https://doi.org/10.2174/1874450801004010031
Powell, AL and Hepburn, LJ and Smith, DJ and Bell, JJ (2010) Patterns of Sponge Abundance Across a Gradient of Habitat Quality in the Wakatobi Marine National Park, Indonesia. The Open Marine Biology Journal, 4 (1). pp. 31-38. DOI https://doi.org/10.2174/1874450801004010031
Powell, AL and Hepburn, LJ and Smith, DJ and Bell, JJ (2010) Patterns of Sponge Abundance Across a Gradient of Habitat Quality in the Wakatobi Marine National Park, Indonesia. The Open Marine Biology Journal, 4 (1). pp. 31-38. DOI https://doi.org/10.2174/1874450801004010031
Abstract
Sponges are important components of reef communities worldwide, fulfilling a number of important functional roles. Habitat degradation caused by the loss of hard corals has the potential to cause increases in sponge abundance and percentage cover as they gain access to resources such as space and food. In this study we compared sponge densities and percentage cover at sites with varying hard coral cover in the Wakatobi Marine National Park, Indonesia (WMNP). We found significant differences in sponge densities at the study sites but no significant difference in sponge densities on different surface angles. Unexpectedly, we also found a weak positive correlation between coral cover and sponge density. This indicates that spatial competition is unlikely to be the most important factor determining sponge abundance in the WMNP. In contrast to sponge density data, we found that sponge percentage cover and hard coral cover were weakly negatively correlated, but found no significant difference in sponge percentage cover between the study sites. Finally, multivariate analysis of the benthic communities at the study sites indicated that while sites with higher coral cover were characterised by coral (proportionally), lower coral cover sites were characterised by algae and sponges. This suggests that although there was no significant difference in sponge percentage cover between the study sites conditions that led to the loss of hard coral at lower quality sites mean that these sites are characterised by sponges and algae rather than by any other groups of benthic organisms.
Item Type: | Article |
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Subjects: | Q Science > QH Natural history > QH301 Biology |
Divisions: | Faculty of Science and Health Faculty of Science and Health > Life Sciences, School of |
SWORD Depositor: | Unnamed user with email elements@essex.ac.uk |
Depositing User: | Unnamed user with email elements@essex.ac.uk |
Date Deposited: | 11 Oct 2011 15:21 |
Last Modified: | 16 May 2024 18:31 |
URI: | http://repository.essex.ac.uk/id/eprint/1093 |
Available files
Filename: 31TOMBJ.pdf