NEW Publication: Ecological Winners and Losers in a Highly Disturbed Coral Reef System

October 8, 2025

Dr. Nicholas Jones

Ecological Winners and Losers in a Highly Disturbed Coral Reef System

Drawing on 20 years of monitoring data (2003–2023), the study found that repeated acute events have continually reshaped benthic communities—marked by rising macroalgae and declining stony coral cover. Over a 10-year period, research divers measured thousands of colonies from four stony coral and three octocoral species to compare recruitment, adult density, and colony size.

Results show that while both stony corals and octocorals experienced recruitment booms, only octocorals maintained steady growth. In contrast, stony corals remained small, occupying little space on the seafloor. Combined with disturbance-driven mortality and low recruitment rates, this has led to sharp declines in key reef-building coral species.

Although some resilient species persist, their limited structural complexity—due to small or flat morphologies—has resulted in increasingly uniform reef communities. Today, more than 80% of benthic cover consists of sediment, turf algae, and macroalgae/cyanobacteria, reducing the potential for stony coral recovery and reshaping the ecological future of southeast Florida’s reefs.