Mapping the reef biocenoses: A landscape method

Abstract

An economical and operationally reasonable mapping procedure is the landscape method. It allows one to distinguish the uniform fields within the ecosystem using an ostensible typology of the underwater sites. Based on the facial theory, the landscape is an ostensible expression of the ecosystem. Thus, the system may be generalized as a number of typical sites or landscape facies. A typological landscape system and corresponding nomenclature was worked out during the 1978 "Kallisto" expedition to Fantome bank (Timor Sea). Underwater landscape facies in the submerged reef system include "tropia, squamiger, patia, dilaps, pectinate, elate, devex, implet and ruderate."