Coral reefs are in decline across the globe as a result of overexploitation, pollution, disease and, more recently, climate change. The impacts of changes in coral cover on associated fish communities can be difficult to predict because of the uneven dependence of reef fish species on corals for food, shelter or the three-dimensional structure they provide. We compared live coral cover, reef fi...

The Indo-Pacific lionfish species [Pterois volitans (Linnaeus, 1758) and P. miles (Bennett, 1828): Family Scorpaenidae] are the first nonnative marine fishes to establish in the Western North Atlantic and Caribbean Sea. Despite the continued documentation of its range expansion and highly publicized invasion (including public-driven removal efforts) there remains a paucity of basic information ...

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The community structure of Jamaican coral reefs has undergone drastic change since mass mortalities ofthe long-spined black sea urchin Diadema anrillarum Philippi occurred in 1983. In the absence of Diadema, algal abundance has increased enormously, up to a mean of 95% cover or 4.6 kg wet weight m-a. Coral cover, which was already low on some reefs following Hurricane Allen in 1980, has been fu...

1. Climate change is emerging as one of the greatest threats to coral reef ecosystems. Climate-induced warming events trigger coral bleaching and mortality, which can indirectly affect coral reef fishes. Managing fisheries across coral mortality events is expected to influence the persistence of species and reef recovery potential. The most common management recommendation has been to prohibit ...

Discovery Bay is one of nine sites around Jamaica's coastline, soon to gain the legislative protection of Fish Sanctuary (and Scientific Reserve) status. Cumulative natural and anthropogenic impacts drove the 1980's coral to algae phase shift. Discovery Bay CARICOMP data (1994 to 2007) showed an increase in coral cover from less than 5% reported in the mid 1980's to 11.7 +/- 0.31% (mean +/- SE)...

Growth rates of the major Caribbean reef framework-building coral Orbicella spp. decrease with increasing water depth and light attenuation. However, reliable, spatially distributed growth rates for corals deeper than 30 m are rare, and the combined influence of coral framework accretion, secondary framework accretion, and framework macroboring on net framework calcification in these habitats i...

Due to their unusual living environment as compared with terrestrial organisms, marine organisms, such as sponge, octocoral, tunicate and bryozoan, metabolite and produce a variety of substances which often have various unprecedented chemical structures and exhibit significant biological activities. These bioactive constituents may offer interesting subjects of studies in view of bioorganic che...

We deployed three replicate larval light traps off the upper Florida Keys from June–September 2001 to measure the delivery of settlement-stage fish larvae to the coral reefs. Nightly measures of larval abundance were compared to water temperatures measured across the outer reef, nearby wind records, and the alongshore and cross-shelf components of the currents measured at the seaward edge of th...

The destruction of coral reef habitats has occurred at unprecedented levels during the last three decades. Coral disease and bleaching in the Caribbean and South Florida have caused extensive coral mortality with limited recovery, often coral reefs are being replaced with turf algae. Acroporids were once dominant corals and have diminished to the state where they are being considered as endange...