[Coral-List] Competition and resilience on reefs in 1925

[Lasker, Howard]

In searching for references to hurricane damage I discovered:

THE NATURAL DESTRUCTION OF A CORAL REEF.
By Charles Hedley, Scientific Director of the Great Barrier Reef 
Investigations.
1925  Reports of the Great Barrier Reef Commission 1:25-40

The following quote from Hedley's report should remind us that many of 
our ideas are not as new as we tend to think.

    "The seaweeds and coral are antithetical to each other, the
    weeds making the ground foul for coral by leaving to the corals
    no clean gritty surface to perch upon, so that the coral will be
    unable to regain this site while the weeds are in possession of it.
    But the cycle will run its course; when the algal complex now in
    possession dies down the corals will resume their heritage, as one
    crop follows another. "

You can find the article at 
https://ia800707.us.archive.org/25/items/reportsgreatbarigrea/reportsgreatbarigrea_bw.pdf

Cheers,



-- 
Howard R. Lasker
    
    Director, Graduate Program in Evolution, Ecology & Behavior
  
    Professor, Department of Environment and Sustainability, Department of Geology


Website: http://www.geology.buffalo.edu/people/faculty/lasker.shtml

Graduate Program website: http://evolutionecologybehavior.buffalo.edu/