Spatial pattern of Scleractinian coral Population Structure in Weizhou Island, Beihai, Guangxi
广西涠洲岛造礁珊瑚种群结构的空间分布

Based on the analysis of image data and sample identification of 20 subsections on 6 principal sections in the direction perpendicular to the coast line around coast area of the Weizhou Islands conducted during 2007 to 2008, there are 46 species, 22 genuses and 10 families of coral and 9 species indeterminate found in coral reef area of the Weizhou Islands; Favites, Porites and Montipora are dominant groups whose important value percentages of genuses are 25.78%, 17.47% and 15.11% respectively; the distributions of dominant groups of coral groups on each principal section are different, and there are more genuses and species of coral in W2 of the southwest and W5 of the northeast, in both of which there are 13 genuses belonging to 8 families with rather high uniformity of distribution of scleractinia; the distribution of coral in the Weizhou Islands is divided into 4 biogeomorphological zones as gravel and coral fragmentation zone, scleractinia rarefaction zone, scleractinia prosperity zone and gorgonian prosperity zone, and the scleractinia prosperity zone with more distribution of scleractinia is mainly distributed in the scope from -1.39 m to -5 m deep. Scleractinia takes massive/submassive form and plate-like form as its major shapes, and the massive/submassive form is dominant in the degree of coverage. In the surveyed region which is affected greatly by global extreme high temperatures caused by El Nino phenomenon in 1998 and extreme low temperature climate from January to February in 2008 and unreasonable human activites, the coverage and dominance of branching form coral have decreased and it has been out of dominant species combination.