Discovery Bay, Jamaica

Biodiversity and Ecological Units of the Mesophotic Coral Ecosystems in San Andrés Island, SeaFlower Biosphere Reserve

“…Also, species like the blackcap basslet Gramma melacara which can hardly be observed shallower than 20 m depth, were very common in the fore-reef slope (50-70 m depth). G. melacara is a common species in the deep fore-reef at different sites along the Caribbean, being considered as the most abundant mesophotic reef fish of the Western/Central Caribbean (Dustan and Lang, 2019). Similarly, the longsnout butterflyfish Prognathodes aculeatus, an observed but uncommon fish species in shallow waters of the Caribbean reefs, was one of the common fish species in San Andrés MCE.…”

High ecological resilience of the sea fan Gorgonia ventalina during two severe hurricanes

“…Through the lens of scleractinians, the last 40 years has been a sequence of disturbances serving as ecological ratchets promoting low coral cover ( Birkeland, 2004 ; Birkeland, 2019 ), coral rarity ( Edmunds, 2018 ), and coral extinction ( Carpenter et al, 2008 ). These trends are striking in the Caribbean ( Gardner et al, 2003 ; Jackson et al., 2014 ), where many reefs are unrecognizable compared to the 1960s (e.g., Goreau, 1959 ; Jackson et al., 2014 ; Dustan & Lang, 2019 ). On some reefs, however, arborescent octocorals have emerged as a dominant taxon ( Ruzicka et al, 2013 ; Lenz et al, 2015 ) that contributes three-dimensional structure as flexible “forests” with a canopy of closely located branches ( Rossi et al, 2017 ; Tsounis, Steele & Edmunds, 2020 ).…”

Figure 1: Study sites at Yawzi Point (9-m depth) (A) and Tektite (14-m depth) (B) in 2016.

“…Through the lens of scleractinians, the last 40 years has been a sequence of disturbances serving as ecological ratchets promoting low coral cover (Birkeland, 2004;Birkeland, 2019), coral rarity (Edmunds, 2018), and coral extinction (Carpenter et al, 2008). These trends are striking in the Caribbean (Gardner et al, 2003;Jackson et al, 2014), where many reefs are unrecognizable compared to the 1960s (e.g., Goreau, 1959;Jackson et al, 2014;Dustan & Lang, 2019). On some reefs, however, arborescent octocorals have emerged as a dominant taxon (Ruzicka et al, 2013;Lenz et al, 2015) that contributes three-dimensional structure as flexible ''forests'' with a canopy of closely located branches (Rossi et al, 2017;Tsounis, Steele & Edmunds, 2020).…”