[Coral-List] Prioritizing impacts to coral reefs
Eugene Shinn
eugeneshinn at mail.usf.edu
Fri Apr 18 14:03:45 EDT 2014
Les Kaufman has it right about rugosity. During my college days in the
1950s several of us essentially made a living spearing fish in the
Florida Keys. We speared mainly groupers and hog fish. I now know after
years of geological research that the areas that produced the most fish
was mainly exposed Pleistocene limestone (Pleistocene coral reef). It
looked like a reef to us because it had rugosity, ledges, and there were
the usual sea fans, sponges and ocassional large coral head. It took
coring and high resolution seismic surveys to reveal that where the meat
fish were was simply hard ground communities. We stayed away from the
isolated highly rugose photographically beautiful live reefs. Although
most are dead now those areas were populated mainly by colorful tropical
fish and baracuda. Large groupers can't negotiate their way through a
staghorn thicket very well. It remains an unsolved mystery why most of
that 150 mile stretch of limestone (where the big fish were) did not
develop a living reef after 6,000 years under clear water adjacent to
the Gulfstream. Prioritizing the causes of reef demise in light of such
geologic history seems difficult and fraught with incorrect leads. I
think we still have a lot to learn. Gene
--
No Rocks, No Water, No Ecosystem (EAS)
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E. A. Shinn, Courtesy Professor
University of South Florida
College of Marine Science Room 221A
140 Seventh Avenue South
St. Petersburg, FL 33701
<eugeneshinn at mail.usf.edu>
Tel 727 553-1158
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