DISTURBANCE AND RECOVERY OF CORAL ASSEMBLAGES

Trends in the health of coral reefs worldwide were examined by surveyi ng the literature for quantitative studies of coral abundance that wer e at least four years long and contained data on variance among sample s. Of the 65 examples in which sufficient data exist to make a judgmen t, coral cover did not decline in 29%, with fewer declines in the Indo -Pacific than in the W. Atlantic. Coral cover declined and recovered i n 29% (all in the Indo-Pacific) and declined but did not recover in 42 % of the examples (16% in the Indo-Pacific and 26% in the W. Atlantic) . Thus, coral assemblages were relatively stable over ecological time scales in 58% of the examples surveyed. However, the W. Atlantic regio n was more unstable than the Indo-Pacific; declines without subsequent recovery occurred in 57% of W. Atlantic examples but in only 29% of t hose in the Indo-Pacific. The principal reason corals recovered in som e local sites but not in others seems to be related to the type of dis turbance that caused the decline. Coral cover recovered after 69% of t he acute, short-term disturbances but after only 27% of the chronic, l ong-term ones.