[Coral-List] Poor terminology in coral reef research 2: Spur and Groove
Thomas Goreau
goreau at bestweb.net
Fri Nov 3 13:17:55 EST 2006
Many coral reef researchers are still incorrectly using the term
"SPUR AND GROOVE" more than 50 years after this error was identified
in the first work on coral species zonation (T. F. Goreau, 1956, A
Study of the Biology and Histochemistry of Corals, Yale).
True Spur and Groove is the result of erosion, with the grooves
incised into older hard rock, with little live coral coverage, and
with erosion rounded boulders, not sand, in the grooves. This is what
Mike Risk has recently described on the list server on the outer
reefs of Mauritius, and is especially common in the Pacific, where it
was first described in the 1947 studies at Bikini Atoll. It is very
rare in the Caribbean, but true Spur and Groove can be found on the
northern Barrier Reefs in the Turks and Caicos Islands (T. J. Goreau,
T. Fisher, F. Perez, and K. Lockhart, 2006, Turks and Caicos Islands
Coral Reef Assessment and Management and Restoration Strategy,
Department of Environment and Coastal Resources, in press).
However almost all of what is now being called "Spur and Groove", at
least in the Caribbean, has a completely different origin, the result
of growth by living corals. These are CONSTRUCTIONAL, not EROSIONAL
features. The canyon sides were (originally) almost completely
covered by live corals, and the bottom covered with reef sand flowing
episodically down slope. The correct term for these formations is
"Buttress and Canyon", with the heights of the growing coral
buttresses above the canyons ranging from as little as inches to as
much as 30 meters or more in the kinds of exceptionally healthy reefs
we used to have in Jamaica. The fact that almost all the corals are
now dead should not blind us to their very different origin by
imprecise terminology that acts to confuse factors causing them, and
it would be a good idea for people to again differentiate the origins
of these superficially similar but very distinct morphological
features by distinguishing them with the separate terms proposed half
a century ago.
Thomas J. Goreau, PhD
President
Global Coral Reef Alliance
37 Pleasant Street, Cambridge MA 02139
617-864-4226
goreau at bestweb.net
http://www.globalcoral.org
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