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Brown University

Publication Date

Fall 2018

Program Name

Tanzania: Wildlife Conservation and Political Ecology

Abstract

While the existence of vertical zonation on coral reefs is well-known, the driving mechanisms and the influence each has is not clear. This study seeks to investigate the influence of reef health on vertical zonation. Reef health is used as a potential factor since it is essentially a broad description of reef diversity. Therefore, a healthy reef which is very diverse is likely to have more and different interspecies interactions than an unhealthy one. This project investigates whether these altered interactions results in different depth distributions of various coral types, categorized broadly by colony shape. Reef health did not seem to significantly affect depth distribution of coral types, although it did influence the species richness of branching and small dome-shaped corals in upper reef sections.

Disciplines

African Studies | Biodiversity | Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment | Environmental Monitoring | Oceanography

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