Coral interactions and community structure: an analysis of spatial pattern

Abstract

The spatial patterns of the coral community along a reef flat transect at Heron Island, Great Barrier Reef [Australia], were studied at 2 scales to investigate the possible effects of coral interactions on community structure. The dominant aspect of spatial pattern at the small scale was a random mingling of the species. A minor aspect was that a few species pairs were not randomly mingled but were significantly less common as neighbors than could be expected by chance. The large-scale spatial pattern, itself decomposable into several components, was a zonation of species over the transect. None of the components of small-scale pattern was strongly coupled with any components of the large-scale pattern. Only the minor nonrandom component of small-scale pattern could reasonably be the result of coral interactions. Coral interactions can play only a minor role in structuring this community.