Effect of reef fish grazing on coral restoration by transplanted coral from sexual reproduction technique

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Se Songploy

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to test the direct effect of grazing of fish and urchins on outplanted coral growth and survival. Field experiments were conducted at Samea San Island, Chonburi Province, and all corals, Acropora millepora and Platygyra sinensis used in the experiments were cultured via sexual propagation. To test the hypothesis that the exclusion of grazing would result in increasing outplanted-coral growth and survivalship, fish exclusion cages were deployed for 4 months. The results showed that survival rated were significantly different among treatments. The survival rates of corals were high in cages with sea urchins. However, there was no significant difference in growth rates between treatments in any coral species. In addition, the variation of growth and survival of coral also found between different ages of corals due to coral species. Thus, this study showed that exclusion of fish had a positive effect on the survival of corals. In another hand, exclusion of herbivore also increasing the biomass of macroalgaes those competitive with corals, Therefore, for corals outplanting for reef rehabilitation purpose, rearing juvenile corals in cages may allow them to increase in sizes faster.

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How to Cite
Songploy, S. (2018). Effect of reef fish grazing on coral restoration by transplanted coral from sexual reproduction technique. NKRAFA JOURNAL OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, 12, 41–51. Retrieved from https://ph02.tci-thaijo.org/index.php/nkrafa-sct/article/view/155055
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Research Articles

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