Chapter 53, Problem 3Q

Summary Introduction

To review:

The factors that may have resulted in the development of high coral reef species at the Kimbe Bay site and low at others.

Given:

Figure 1 shows the study area of the experiment in the Indo-pacific region with high coral reef species. The three sites are Kimbe Bay in Papua New Guinea (PNG), Moorea Island in French Polynesia, and Lizard Island in the Great Barrier Reef on the east coast of Australia.

Figure 1: Experimental sites across the Indo-pacific region.

Graph 1 shows the results of the number of fish species found in the coral species region. A relationship was established between the index of sensitivity and the number of coral species.

Graph 1: Relationship between the index of sensitivity and number of coral species.

Introduction:

An experiment was conducted in the three islands, Kimbe Bay (highest fish diversity), Moorea island (lowest number of fish species), and Lizard island (with an intermediate number of fish species). In the experiment, the coral diversity was manipulated and associated fish species were counted during a 12-month period. Based on this experiment, an index of sensitivity was calculated to evaluate the relationship between the number of coral species and the number of associated fish species that inhabited in the plots.