Sinularia雅虎社区

UniquecoralcommunityinthePersianGulfReceived:6September2008/Accepted:18October2008/Publishedonline:9November2008Springer-Verlag2008AfringingcoralcommunityatLarakIsland(26°53N,56°23E),situatedattheboundarybetweenthePersianGulfandGulfofOmanintheStraitofHormuz,isdescribed.
LittlepublishedinformationexistsaboutIranianreefsandtheirfaunaandsuchacoralcommunityhasnotyetbeenreportedinthePersianGulf(Shinn1976;SheppardandSheppard1991;Riegl1999;Sheppardetal.
1992;Rezaietal.
2004).
LarakIslandhasmainlysandyshoreswithpatchyreefdevelopmentmostlyinitsnorthernandwesternparts.
Thedescribedareaextendsabout1kmnortheastoftheIsland.
Thetidalregimeintheareaismixedandtidalrangemayreach4mduringtheyear.
Exposedtoairforafewhoursadayduringspringlowtide(Fig.
1a),thewholeshallowzone(<5m)coralcommunitywasdominatedbysoftcorals,suchasSinulariacompressa,S.
erecta(Fig.
1f),othersoftcoralspecies,andhardcorals,e.
g.
,Montiporacf.
danai,Platygyradaedalea,Stylophorapistillata(Fig.
1b–d),andFaviafavus.
Totallivehardandsoftcoralcoverinthiszonewas18and15%,respectively.
Adeepercoralzone(5–8m),dominatedbyAcroporadowningiandA.
khayranensis,occurreddownslopeto8mindepth(Fig.
1g)with78.
6%cover.
Belowthat,Sarcophytonsp.
(Fig.
1e),Junceellajuncea,andGonioporasp.
becomedominantandcontinueto11mdepth(Fig.
1g).
ThedescribedareaisofparticularecologicalimportanceanduniqueinthePersianGulf,assoftcoralsweredominantinthecoralcommunityandthattheycantoleratesuchharshenvironmentaluctuations,whichislikelyduetosomespecialmechanismsandchangesintheirphys-iology.
Itisnotknownwhetherthisstructurerepresentsatrueframeworkreeforwhetherthecoralssimplyfollowexistingmorphology.
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Box:14155-4181,Tehran,Irane-mail:kaveh_s_n@yahoo.
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ZohariFacultyofMarineSciences,IslamicAzadUniversity,TehranNorthBranch,Tehran,IranFig.
1aShallowzonewasexposedduringlowtide,bMontiporacf.
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