Regeneration of a reef flat ten years after the impact of the cyclone Firinga (Reunion, SW Indian ocean)

Odile Naim (1) , Pascale Chabanet (1) , T. Done (2) , Catherine Tourrand (1) , Yves Letourneur (1)

1 ECOMAR - Laboratoire d'Ecologie Marine
2 AIMS Townsville - Australian Institute of Marine Science [Townsville]

Regeneration of a reef flat ten years after the impact of the cyclone Firinga (Reunion, SW Indian ocean) 0. aim', P. Chabanet', T. Done', C. Tourrand' and Y. Letourneur' ABSTRACT Changes in composition of corals, algae and fishes at St-Leu, La Reunion, appear to be successional in character, the presence and abundance of each group facilitating the presence and abundance of others by changing the local community structure and resource base. This was shown in a study following Cyclone Firinga in 1989. Before the cyclone, large colonies of Acropora nturicata, dominated the coral zone. forming with Porites lobota. Po~~otia divaricate and large tables of Acropora cytherea, a coral community of 30-40% coverage with relatively low diversity. Immediately after the cyclone, only 2 coral species survived. but the growth rate of living coral later exceeded its previous maximum due to the low tendency for competition for space, reaching more than 6% per year. By 2000. the coral richness on St-Leu (51 species) was comparable to that recorded 20 years earlier. For fish. total species richness and the mean species number 1 census slightly increased between 1993 and 2000, but there were important differences among sites and times that were mainly due to change in individual numbers inside the territories of the damselfish Slegastes trigricans, which in turn were linked to the changing coral and algal cover. Variations in fish density were related to variation of benthic cover ,including corallivorous Chaetodontidae. that useful as bioindicators of coral reef health.

Domaines: Sciences du Vivant [q-bio]

Odile Naim, Pascale Chabanet, T. Done, Catherine Tourrand, Yves Letourneur. Regeneration of a reef flat ten years after the impact of the cyclone Firinga (Reunion, SW Indian ocean). 9th International Coral Reef Symposium, Oct 2000, Bali, Indonesia. pp.547-554. ⟨hal-00913738⟩