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Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of the reef profile on the associated fish community. Two stations with different reef shape and depth, Bayada and Abotair islands located off Jeddah coast on the Saudi Arabian Red Sea were studied. The reef check was used to determine the proportion of hard coral, soft coral, algae, and other benthic components. A 20 m long by 5 m belt was used to determine the number and colonies and genera of hard and soft corals. Fish were counted using the underwater visual census (UVC) technique along a transect that is 50 meters long, 5 meters broad, and 1 meter high.
Abotair's hard coral cover is higher (60%) than Bayada's (32%), On the other hand, Bayada had greater recently dead coral (16%) and nutrient indicator algae (20%) than Abotair. However, analysis of variance (ANOVA) confirmed a significant variation in the number of components between the two locations (F = 2.5, P < 0.05). A total of 230 coral colonies belonging to 49 species were identified on the Bayada and Abotair Islands. Pocillopora verrucosa dominated the coral communities. A total of 1346 fish representing 68 species, at both stations were recorded. The of species was also higher in Bayada (45 species) than in Abotair (40 species). It is concluded that the patchy and shallow reefs in Bayada harbored more fish individuals and species than the vertical and deep reef in Abotair island.

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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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