CORAL POPULATION-STRUCTURE - THE HIDDEN INFORMATION OF COLONY SIZE-FREQUENCY DISTRIBUTIONS

Analyses of coral colony size-frequency distributions reveal important characteristics of populations on the reef. Coral colony size-frequen cies can be modelled by log normal distributions and coral populations can be described by statistics of frequency distributions such as coe fficient of variation, skewness and mode. Coefficient of variation all ows comparison of variation in coral populations of different mean col ony size. Skewness reflects the proportion of small versus larger colo nies, representing juvenile input and longevity. The mode in the size- frequency distributions represents the most frequent colony size. The mode appears indicative of a change in the relative impact of total an d partial mortality in coral populations. These size-frequency variabl es differ significantly between coral species and, within species, bet ween reef localities. Coral colony size-frequency diagrams provide ins ight into past events and have some predictive power with respect to p opulation development. Our data demonstrate that measurement of the ab ove-mentioned variables could be a tool to estimate the response of co ral populations to the reef environment.